


Penance

by Abi_Faye



Series: Timeless [1]
Category: The Chronicles
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 56
Words: 265,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abi_Faye/pseuds/Abi_Faye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You look innocent, love. </p><p>{But now I know the truth.}</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Request

The last time they spoke they were at a bit of a disadvantage. Stefanie was with the company of a man who seemed well aware of who he was, while Marcus knew nothing of the girl except she was quite glad to hear of Gina's death. Now, Marcus knew more about the woman, thanks to Chantel's information.   
  
Certain her heart had likely picked up another dozen beats a minute watching the woman looking at her with unmistakable hunger, Stefanie decides to mirror the desirous image to look at the man near her until she was stepping away. It wasn't hard. That man brought a new definition to the word 'hunk.' And whoever that man was with him, the human they'd both been...enjoying, he was pretty gorgeous too. For a brief instant, Stefanie wonders if she'd soon be in a position to insure the man lived. Yes, she knew most supes had issues with control, but...Stefanie had always been in control. She'd been in control of herself more than anyone ever believed her (her own screams of 'No!' haunt her ears), and as soon as she wasn't able to be held back...?

Her smile isn't reflected in eyes chilled, but her heartrate and flush were giving away everything already. "I was going to offer you my gratitude for ridding the world of Gina, only, Brackners have loud mouths when boasting of their girlfriends. So I suppose I'll simply say thank you for meeting me tonight."

Her heart rate and breathing gave her nerves away but aside from it, no normal person would have been the wiser. It was a commendable skill, one borne out of a familiarity in speaking to creatures and beings such as him and his companions. With a little more practice, Stefanie could even learn how to control her heart rate. Marcus had once met a hunter with the skill to do so, even while pursued. It took a lot of discipline.  
  
He paid the fluster of her cheeks no mind as he gestured once more at the bar, now for a drink for the newly arrived young woman. She was a beauty, something that had not escaped Theo's notice, and that in itself had not escaped Bruno's notice. The young man began to kiss the vampire's alabaster neck to keep his attention. Raina next to him was also growing angry, deprived of a new meal.  
  
"I would have not taken the credit either way, Holly was exceptional." And apparently there were some family traits that never changed. By that measure though, adultery also ran in the family. Chuckling to himself, he smiled again as she expressed gratitude. A pleasantry, mostly, but one he found he enjoyed.  
  
"I admit, you've left me rather curious. Most people don't actively look for me." Actively avoid him, yes, but never the opposite. Then again, there were few alive who knew him by Marcus Ellwood anymore, yet the list seemed to grow longer every day. He was torn between flattery and annoyance on the matter, but he tended to defer to the former.

"Oh, really? I'd have thought a lot of people look for you."   
  
(She thinks it's honest. But then right now she didn't like thinking, she rather liked just doing, acting, moving forward. That was all there was. Stef was...done, she was bloody done with all of it, what she needs now she knows, it's to find a way to make it all mean something. Something more than Death and Destruction. And if she has to spite Death to do it...well then.)

No, they didn't look for him, Marcus still stood by that. More often than not those who found him were lost, wandering, with no clear idea of what they were looking for. What they almost always wound up finding was death, and it wasn't until it was too late that some of them realized that was the very opposite of what they sought, but most of them did.  
  
Ah, see, that was why Marcus avoided poetry; he simply wasn't cut out for it.

"But then," Stefanie offers as she accepts the drink without taking a sip, laying her bag on the counter without releasing it, "perhaps I simply speak of a few people I know."  
  
Like, Olivier. (Not Tony. She was pretty sure Tony would rather stab his eyes than lay them on Marcus, but she won't say that. Better to be mysterious and what not, or so she knew from dealing with her brother's pack. Supernaturals have supernaturally sized egos, and what not; garnering his help couldn't begin with her just laying all her cards on the table.)

Stefanie takes a breath, eying his companions a bit warily, and then looks back to Marcus, determinedly.  
  
"You turned Remington." She looks at him steadily, and now even her heartbeat is, "Yes? So you know his sons."  
  
Somewhere, she thinks she can hear an innate protest considering that the last thing Tony honestly was, was his father's son, but she ignores it. Some sick part of her is satisfied.

"Olivier and Antonio, yes, we spoke about them on occasion," Marcus nods again before turning as the bar waitress stepped forward with two glasses of cognac on a circular tray. Picking them up, he offered one to Stefanie. The unspoken answer to her statement rather than question was yes, he had turned Remington. He made no inquiries of his own, however, merely waited for her to continue.  
  
Smile beginning to show cracks, Stefanie licked at her upper teeth and let out a sheepish, mostly honest chuckle.

"I'm flattered to have left you in suspense," Stefanie smirks, taking a sip of the glass and giving a nod in approval of the taste. "But what I want is fairly simple. There are people I care about in danger. I wish to be able to protect them. So I want you," she points over the glass, then taps her finger against it, breathes out and finally says it, "to turn me. But then, rather than my burdening you further when it appears you already are such a busy man," she gestures without even a look to the trio still looking at her, "to let me learn from the D'Grey's."  
  
Olivier wouldn't leave her to the street, she knew, and Tony...  
  
(Nope, not thinking about it.)  
  
But she knew she didn't want to learn from Marcus himself. Chantel refused to turn her without Marcus' permission--and that sounds much too much like being an Alpha for Stefanie's liking. She breathes out, taking another sip as she adds under her breath, "In exchange, I'm sure we can work out something out with information. Your return to Paris on the eve of Notre Dame can't be a coincidence."

He listened to what she wanted with curiosity, because while he had been asked to turn people before, it had never been for a quote-unquote "moral cause". He had turned Remington so the man could have the power to achieve his very ambitious goal. He had turned Chantel when she was on the brink of death, not ready to die. He had been asked numerous of times to turn humans who were bored of their mediocre lives, who craved excitement, who wanted to be beautiful, eternally youthful, and deadly.

The last was seemingly the only similarity between the other's desires and Stefanie's, though it was understandable how one could mistakenly think she feared losing her beauty as well. She was a model after all, being beautiful is what they knew. And every day there were new women turning 18 and willing to pose more liberally than the models from years before.  
  
Then again, vampires were subtly taking over the industry.  
  
That was an interesting to condition. She didn't want to learn from him, and he knew it had very little to do with the purposefully flattering remark of him being a busy man. There was a possible moral objection there somewhere, or perhaps an unwillingness to be like Raina over there. Turning a vampire and then letting her roam? That was dangerous. If Chantel was correct, and she usually was, he could at least count on the D'Grey's to take her in.  
  
Or kill her. Antonio's distaste of their kind was no secret, and some talking with his old colleagues in the city colored Olivier as, at best, friendly out of tradition and respect for his father, at worst nonchalant and standoffish. He hoped the connection between her and the brothers was strong enough that it wouldn't need to come to that if he turned her.  
  
"I've been in the country for a little longer than that," he revealed with a brief smirk before finally taking a sip of the drink, "nonetheless, this is very unusual." He smacked his lips as the taste of clover, vanilla, hazelnut, and the Trebbiano grape lingered on his tongue, as well as the oak cask in which it was aged.

With another brief sip of the Cognac (she took it to be polite, to forget, to garner liquid courage--take your pick), she smiles wider, cracks more numerous, dimple pronounced. It was the smile that killed on centerfolds.   
  
"I enjoy being unusual," she offers as if it's a lark. The crinkles around her eyes were laugh lines she wouldn't quibble over freezing and making her look older; she might not have to worry about that soon.   
  
(And photographers be damned, she couldn't say she honestly gives a fuck any more about wrinkles.)

"What do you know about the relationship between vampires and their sires?"

But, after all, that question wasn't 'no.' Progress, she thinks.

"I know I'll be grateful," she says in a small voice, eyes fixed on his with words that spoke as if he'd agreed already, "I know I'll be loyal, and feel a pull to obey, varying in intensity. I know I'll remain connected. And I know that," she sips another burning-smoky gulp and barely swallows her cough, "you aren't a man to do something for nothing in return.   
  
Or so your reputation is. Which is why," she sets the glass back down and folds her hands across her clutch. It has the added benefit of turning her neck to be prominent and visible in the pulsating light. "I have information. I know of the...distaste, between vampires and wolves...which leads me to believe you won't allow wolves transforming at will rule in the city. Which, by the by, happens to be one of the elder D'Grey's goals as well."  
  
She smiles, smooth now, uncracked. It was plain she wouldn't say more on that until he agreed.

It was an answer that while not incorrect was rather ignorant, but he could not expect her to know any better. The connection between a vampire and his or her sire was one that had no human equivalent. It was neither parental nor romantic, it was something else entirely though it did have attributes from both, it varied with each case. It made it difficult to explain when there was nothing to accurately compare it to.  
  
One thing was certain however, Stefanie seemed aware enough of it to want to disregard it. If she was turned then it was quite possible said connection would be weaker. This was a woman trying to break free from dependency, he would suspect, as such she wouldn't want to feel like she owed him anything which is why she was trying to make this a business transaction. A turning for information. Well, she certainly was going about it the correct way.  
  
Her neck on display did more for Raina's poor dwindling control than entice or distract him, but he appreciated her instinct and tactic. Confirmation over the existence of that pack was enough to pique his interests enough to begin considering this seriously.  
  
"La oss være," he told Theo in his mother tongue, asking for privacy and for him to take Raina away and distract her before her head explodes.

The rest of the small crowd in the room trickled until they were the only two left.

Brushing a free hand down her neck as they were left alone, Stefanie finds herself licking her bottom lip in bemusement. She was used to it by now. The fact that even the bartender left was only further evidence she knew who she was dealing with. Alpha werewolf, D'Grey, Marcus Ellwood...they were all shades of the same kind of Big Men she'd been fooling all her life. (And hasn't she heard Olivier's father boast his maker was once a Lord?)

After another sip as he examined her once again, he deliberated. Stefanie wanted to be turned, wanted as little contact with him as possible afterwards, and seemed unwilling to say anything else on the matter for now. Now he had to weigh what else she could have to say to him that he wouldn't be able to find out himself. After all, he had recently made a new friend in the young Holly-Rae, and she certainly had no love for this pack of wolves that had allied themselves with what the French papers were calling Les Sangsues, The Leeches. Ironic, given that it was one of the meant to be derogatory words for his kind and yet they weren't involved for a moment.  
  
"My maker's name was Lars," he spoke after the silence stretched, returning to his previous subject.

"Was?" That was the word which stands out to Stefanie: he spoke of his maker in the past tense continuously. Maybe she was sensitized; Hans had killed his maker. With pencilled eyebrow arched, she tilts her head forward, a curtain of gold sweeping over her shoulder and clouding her neck once more. A black cat would look at her smile and see a friend.

"Was," he answered to clarify her question. It was a past tense, and it had been for a long time. He knew it didn't satisfy her curiosity but soon she might be privy such details. Like he had said, this connection was a two way street. It took some time for young vampires to realize it, longer for them to know how to navigate it, but it was still there.  
  
"He turned people into vampires for company. Most still do the same as it's not something we do lightly, and those that do you'll find, their vampires don't last for very long. Turning someone involves bloodsharing and there is no greater form of intimacy for vampires." It was why Theo refused to let Bruno sample his blood yet and healed his puncture wounds in other ways; he would have to prove worthy in his eyes.

"It's not obedience that you gain from the connection, it's respect. A maker can't command a vampire, but he or she asks, and most agree. I knew Lars better than I knew myself, and understanding is a powerful thing. So is gratitude, you are correct that is part of it. And a road goes both ways, Creating another vampire, that takes a lot of vulnerability, believe it or not, and there is little else I despise." There was more to this than just letting her drink from his wrist and then snapping her neck. 

Stefanie was thankful to Chantel refusing now. It struck her she'd never done well with anyone in authority, but women especially tend to rub her wrong -- and Chantel herself? What Marcus was describing, ha, she didn't want to have sexualized parental gratitude forever to the woman.

"This isn't only a matter of how good your information is, it's a matter of whether a permanent connection to you is a risk worth taking." It was easier for one sired than the sire. After all, Marcus eventually killed Lars and that was something his maker could have never done to him.  
  
Marcus didn't turn for company. He turned people when he knew he had something to gain from it. As it was, his connections were weaker, but they were nevertheless present. You would think Remington never had a maker from the way he acted, but in private there was a quieter fondness that never left their place of meeting. His strongest connection was with Chantel, yet there was no denying she did what she wanted. Her and Theo styled themselves as husband and wife this century, their marriage open, her life hers to do with as she saw fit and Marcus didn't interfere. But he asked a favor of her and she would do so.  
  
Permanent connections, and this information she was willing to offer wasn't permanent, it was current. Give it some years, he was generous, and it would cease to matter to Marcus. He was one for looking at the grander picture.

"I understand this isn't a light request," Stefanie continues, mild, voice smooth as she laughs her way through pointing out, "I'm asking you to kill me. If I thought this wasn't a risk, then you definitely shouldn't do it."  
  
Swirling the Cognac on the counter, she looks through the glass, mesmirized by the way the grain obscures in the amber void. Her voice is softer now as she continues.  
  
"My brother, as I imagine you might have guessed, is Hans Ricard." Chantel had told him she was coming; her last name was hardly inconspicuous. Still, it strikes her the fact is as much a detractor as a benefit for her. Marcus might think she'd turn on him for her brother if he asked. How could she impress upon him Hans had resolutely decided...--ah, no, nope, she knew.  
  
"As such, I can tell you without a doubt he's lost everything." She flicks her eyes back away from the wood grain. They settle on Marcus. "He's been ousted as alpha, he's lost the ability to transform at will, and I can tell you who took his place." Her smile widens as she shakes her head at him, but only a fraction of an inch. "I can tell you, because it's what I wanted. I won't lie and say my brother isn't important to me, Marcus, but the last thing I want him to be is the all-powerful alpha serial killer, and I got exactly what I wanted."

Marcus thinks: Stefanie seems a smart, cunning, and manipulative woman who had already said herself got everything she wanted. She all but boasts of getting her own brother kicked out of that pack and replacing him with someone of her choosing. Some could say that was rather cold, but Marcus was impressed. After all, a dog's natural instinct was to obey. Alright, he'd be a little more fair. A wolf's natural instinct was survival and loyalty but apparently the latter was an issue there.

Stefanie takes a sip of the glass, then pushes it away. Her heart and breath has steadied with the thought. Getting what she wanted, she was good at it, that remained a fact, it would be true forever.

Folding her hand underneath her chin, she continues, eyes dusk and fluttery, "I understand--actually, now I understand I can't yet empathize with exactly how much of a risk this is for you, being still human. But I told you on the phone I seemed to be acquiring the singular talent of watching people I wished dead drop, often before I knew I wanted them dead. I imagine you could always make use of that, Marcus."

Marcus knew she had no doubt weighed the risk to her before coming here with her mind already made up, but Marcus had a few risks to consider as well. All those people that she was listing off she assumed that he thought she'd cease being loyal to them. Marcus knew that at first your loyalties from being human remained, especially if you were determined to live among them. She was trying to project herself as an asset with connections he could use for his own interests, but she had not the slightest intention to ever go against them. It was admirable, and again her strategy was sound. But he didn't need her to turn against anyone to garner use of those human connections. They were sizable enough, and he couldn't deny a want to have someone closer to the D'Greys than Chantel. The extra information about the wolf pack and her brother also helped.

"Mostly? If you need to know that a permanent connection won't debilitate you, and is worth your time--my brother cares about me." No, her heart doesn't skip over that, "as does Antonio and Olivier D'Grey, as does the new leader of the pack, as does the woman Irene Burns, daughter of the Lord in England, and I know the family of the Secretary of the farm in England and Austria both. So put this way," she pushes her hair off her neck than lays an open palm on the counter, "I am already permanently connected to your interests. I make a better friend than an enemy, Marcus. And," now she winks, leaning forward as she draws herself into him, unafraid to whisper in his ear, "With me, I promise you'll enjoy intimacy."

And as with almost every beautiful woman, Stefanie was well aware of her own beauty, and how to use that to get what she wanted as well. She was a model after all. Licking his lips instinctively, he smiled and then commended her.

"You make a very strong argument, Stefanie." She would make a better vampire than most, but the way she spoke of her wish to not have her brother be a 'serial killing alpha' revealed an innate moral nature. Those lines blurred for vampires, they lived above the human definitions of right and wrong, but she could potentially have some trouble adjusting, again because she was determined to live normally among humans. Then again, D'Grey's were only half human and not exactly poster boys for moral righteousness.  
  
There was one thing he knew however, that was, pardon his pun, dead certain. Stefanie would find herself regretting this. Most did not have a choice, and those that did well...it took a unique type of person to never look back and while there were some similarities between her and Remington, the Remington he had met in the 1920s at least, there weren't enough.  
  
Marcus found himself smirking as he whispered back to her, "You don't know what you're getting yourself into." He would not insult her by saying she didn't have an idea or a clue, because he knew she would have many, but even with all of that...she didn't know and she wouldn't until it was too late.

"I want to know," she whispers still, pulling back only far enough to look him in the eyes. His words of there being respect as much as intimacy (which she's always considered true irregardless) made one thing clear to her. Of all things she asked for, the harshest and heaviest was for him to spend even a half hour vulnerable with her. It was nothing if one considers her vulnerability to compare it with, but his was the position that matters now. She'll look in his eyes without blinking. It's the only way to be truly vulnerable.  
  
And this way she knows he can see that she's telling the truth.   
  
Stefanie does want to know what she's getting in to. She wants to touch things and not feel nothing, she wants entanglements and troubles and all the colors back in life. There's a dim memory of it, a picture in her mind of what she should feel when, for example, she sees cinnamon sugar on toast, or hears 'dah-ling' whispered into her neck. But she doesn't. At the very least, she thinks that Hans proclaiming she wasn't his sister should...hurt?   
  
(It just feels true, now. And truth shouldn't be so empty.)

"May I ask you a question?" Although truthfully he thinks, she had just given as much of an answer as anything she could say. Interesting, this notion she held that vampirism could be salvation...not one he himself believes, truthfully, but curious.

"Go ahead." Stefanie nods, still holding his gaze steadily. There was one trait in common of all people who sought vampires or death, and more often than not they were one in the same. They felt as if there was something missing: crucial, integral. Vampires were death, yes, but they were also life because you couldn't have one without the other. Everything was heightened for them, multiplied exponentially and Stefanie wanted to know every single dirty bit of it.

Oh yes, she'd regret it. Stefanie got what she wanted after all, and refusing her would only have her turning to any other vampire willing to bloodshare with her, and she wouldn't find it difficult to acquire someone.  
  
"What's driving you to this?"  
  
The question was both surprising and...the most expected he could have asked, leaving Stefanie at a disadvantage to answer. Her argument was strong, he said -- she could see in his eyes he was already considering it more than 75% 'yes' (since the moment he cleared the room, she thinks, but then -- honestly he hadn't needed to agree to meet her in the first place either, had he?).  
  
After a long, slow breath as she raised her hand and lays it gently on his chest, she says quietly, "I'm flattered you care to ask."

She was. There was no reason on earth that he should if she made the argument strong enough. Now she doesn't bother breathing. Soon enough, she wouldn't be. He wasn't sure caring came into the mix here, it was more accurately described as curiosity. Marcus liked to know other people with a certain degree of certainty. Normally, he would bide his time. There was nothing he couldn't infer from careful observation rather than direct questioning. He didn't have the luxury of time with her, a curious thing because time was what he had most of. She would regret this decision, but he needed to know whether he would as well.

"But I already told you," she shrugs a shoulder, slipping her hand up to his neck and holding his gaze, "People I care about are in danger, and I can't protect them. And one of them, died in front of my eyes three days ago. I'm never going to let that happen again."

Her hand lingered on his chest and for several drawn out moments her own remained at still as his always was without the necessity for breath.  
  
The answer was actually, very unsurprising. Loss and mourning made a person do crazy things, he would know after all. He had a tracked down a vampire, lost several men in the process, and destroyed him completely. He never regretted that though; Stefanie and himself were 'made of different stuff' if he used the colloquial lingo.  
  
"My condolences," he expressed in the same quiet tone before he leaned further back, grabbing the glass of cognac and taking another sip.

About to say she'd prefer he accepts her offer rather than offer condolences, but he did that after a second and another quick sip. So Stefanie just nods, turning to settle against the bar and doesn't say another word on the matter. It's not as if Marcel wasn't on her mind every moment of the day without dwelling aloud.

"I agree to your terms."

It just needs to stop hurting. Just for a second, she wants to remember how existence could fail to hurt. And she understands, that pain was a part of her now, but this? This here, with Marcus, this decision--this was hers, hers alone. She made him accept her, he didn't seduce her with fairy-tales (she seduced him); he wasn't grabbing her arms and ripping her back (she touches him first).   
  
Nodding slowly as her smile cracks open again to show all her teeth, she says first, "Grazie."

(Was it really only two days ago she was in Roma?)

Italian was a curious choice for an Austrian woman living in Paris. Marcus filed that little detail away for later use as he finished his drink, a chuckle rumbling in his chest at her next question.

"Should we find a bed?" Stefanie asks, for the first (she tells herself it was the first, forgets talking herself out of the bathroom and into actually asking) moment unsure.   
  
Still, in her mind, she had imagined he would take charge at this point--and was gratified to realize he accepted honorably, rather than simply grabbing her.  
  
(Maybe the memory of a Roman balcony could stop hurting too.)

"If you'd prefer it," he nodded, "I wager you don't want to die in the back room of a nightclub." Or maybe she really couldn't care less. A vampire's death was usually the most vivid memory they recalled from being human. In the days and weeks following the turning every human memory would be just as intense but then they would fade because the new memories were formed with tenfold the details from before, making everything human almost too dull.  
  
"Just so you understand, Stefanie, bloodsharing isn't sex, though often the two are joined, that's true," he extends his hand now, his fingers tracing over the pulsepoint on her wrist like he'd done with Raina before, only this vein did rush with the blood. Her skin warm to the touch, her pulse beating surprisingly steady against his fingers.  
  
"How would you like to die?" He asked as he brought his other hand to brush the hair further away from her neck with the back of his knuckles, tracing the muscle that stretched from the base of her ear to the clavicle with his thumb. It was almost a shame that her skin would never flush the same way again.

"Painlessly?" He further inquired, his gaze returning to hers, "Drawn out? By your own hand, perhaps?" Few people had this choice or opportunity, so it did garner some thought, before they began.   
  
A shiver chases it's way up her spine as he caresses her vein, brushes a hand through her hair. There's a clinical look on his face as if he considers where to make a surgical strike, yet her body reacts to his chilling touch as if with foreplay. The pad of his thumb tip sparks against her skin as if match to tinder, bones shaking as she draws breath up and lifts to her toes to press closer to him. To her killer.   
  
(Strange. To think that for all her love of the darker fairytales and childhood dreaming she was a princess, Stefanie shouldn't be surprised she's choose to be a princess-of-the-damned.  
  
But she is surprised.)  
  
Eyes fluttering as she's smiling, she nods to show she understands. Marcus would show her what blood sharing was exactly soon enough to ask anything in particular.  
  
Instead she says, "I'd prefer a bed." With silk sheets. And then she giggles under her breath with a murmur, "with a belly full of wine and--"  
  
Well, actually she literally can't quote Tyrion, Tony could have. (The thought strengthens her mind to go through with it.)  
  
 So she says nothing more on that and instead, says sweetly, "Quick, though that's the first time I've ever answered that. And by my hand, I believe."  
  
A bed and wine (though the latter did strike as half symbolic, what with communion wine representing the blood of Christ), he would take her to a place that would provide that and a little more. Finding her addendum to her response amusing, he nevertheless nods without laughter, his fingers sliding to the base of her throat. Bit of a flutter, but otherwise steady. As prey, that wouldn't have done, adrenaline gave the blood a sweeter taste, but for their purposes you might say it was even preferable. He did not think she would remain so steady, however.  
  
"I inferred as much." Marcus respected it. Killing herself solidified her choice and proved her determination. Oh, he still thought she foolish and would come to regret it, but he respected the decision. Besides, this also had the added benefit of not breaking the promise he had made to another forceful woman (not that she would not blame him either way, but, aha, his conscience was clear).  
  
"You'll have the privacy to do so," he assured her as he lets his hands fall back and gestures he'll follow her out of the basement. 


	2. Notte

A whole floor at the Shangri La hotel was private enough, wasn't it? Marcus had wanted a suite for when he felt like relaxing in luxury and knowing he would not always be alone, he'd decided to rent out the entire floor and their suites as well. The hotel had always been discreet and accommodating to their kind. The windows were lined with a film that blocked UV rays and certain rooms could be turned light-tight.

Marcus, she thinks, took her out of the dark, dizzying, pulsating basement into the lap of luxury and even removes her coat when she enters. Silk heels echoing on the ivory marble, Stefanie's calmed by the privacy (the *intimacy*) even as she was delighted by the beautiful people in the lobby. Shiny, expensive things adorn the walls, blinding her as they walk and welcoming her at once. She feels giddy. She feels insane. Though she prefers spontaneous, truthfully, even though something tells her she'd been headed to this moment since a certain day.  
  
(Her braids were splattered with mud and her horse's thrown hoof cracked and bled before it makes her stumble. Should she tell Marcus she would not be her first casualty?)  
  
As they entered his preferred suite overlooking the Seine, he slips her coat on a bronze hook asking, "Red or white?" For the wine, of course, not her preferred color or her alignment in the historic feud of house Plantagenet though admittedly that was before even his time.  
  
"White, please." Stefanie answers, light, walking to the window and staring out at the ink-black, peaceful Seine.   
  
"We wouldn't want to mix the glasses up," she explains, and then finds herself giggling. She shouldn't be laughing, really. But wasn't it funny? He'd gone to so much trouble here to accomodate her; he could have killed her in the back of a clubroom, yet here she has a private suite on a private floor surrounded by wondrous, ornate, excessive finery.

Closing the door behind them with swiping motion of the air. Stefanie looked as in place here as she did down at the nightclub. It was apparent the type of company she would have regularly kept or at least been used to. She belonged among the luxurious ornaments, furniture, and fixtures as well as in the flashing strobe lights, rhythmic thumping of the bass and smoke filled atmosphere they were in minutes ago underground. It was innate talent being so adaptable.  
  
"It's a beautiful place to die," she comments as she removes her cardigan as well, baring her upper back one button at a time. Her sheath of golden hair hangs to her lower curves, and she hasn't turned.   
Under her breath, she whispers heatedly and dazed, "I have always loved beautiful things..."  
  
Walking into the kitchen as she mentioned wanting white, he found herself smirking at the humor of her next sentence. He would say it was a joke in poor taste but neither the wine not the blood had anything poor about them. It was funny even if there were very little people who would find it as such.  
  
Bottle in hand and glasses in the other, he returned to the main room as she looked out the windows. Setting the glasses down, he uncorked the bottle and began to pour. The advantage of white wine over red in this instance wasn't that it wouldn't be mistaken but rather because it didn't need to aerate.   
  
Stepping forward as he watched her hair cascade down her back, he stopped a hair's breadth from his chest and her back actually meeting and offered the glass around her arm. He looked at the window as well but focused on the reflection she casted rather than the view of the city. Giddy was an odd thing to be at this moment, even falsely so.  
  
"Do you include yourself in that list?"  
  
Stefanie does try not to draw her breath in as he approaches her back. Being breathy now, scared now, when he was only offering her wine and she'd asked him to aid her in killing herself seems a bit-- silly. Yet she can't seem to help it. He was imposing in her personal space, an intimidating handsome predator, handing her something to intoxicate her. Her breath catches. Her cheeks flush pink and her eyelashes flutter.  
  
But she doesn't look down to accept the glass. That's something, she tells herself. Their reflection looks painted in watercolour on the Seine's backdrop, an impressionist piece of art that would be at home on a magazine cover or hanging in the Louvre.   
  
She takes a sip, and thinks about poison. She'd suffocated once from a flute such as this; wouldn't it be funny if she can make history repeat? What a literary piece of art it would be, see, for that Gala to merely have foreshadowed her path. Pleased with the though, she turns one heel and looks down sideways to respond.  
  
"I'm much more than an object," or at least I will be soon, she nearly murmurs. The gesture tilts her neck. "But I'd be both blind to deny my beauty and arrogant to gloat of something that I had small input on--so, Marcus, why don't you tell me, if you think I'm beautiful."  
  
"Of course, my apologies for insinuating any different," he kept his lips from curling in an amused smirk at how literal she took it, and figured it might be a sore and touchy subject. He didn't think it polite to tell her that as a human she wasn't a thing, no, but to him in different circumstances she would have been...well, dinner.  
  
However, that no longer stood true so there was no reason to color this night unpleasant.  
  
After his first drink of the wine, he licked his lips and and lowered the glass from his mouth as she requested his opinion on her beauty.  
  
"I would argue it is more of a matter of fact, than opinion, Stefanie. You are a very beautiful woman. And there's a hidden feral quality about you that I like, now the latter is more opinion than fact." For now, at least. Vampirism expanded all your qualities after all as well gave you certain new qualities of their own.  
  
He took another sip and a step back when he noticed she was holding her breath, a smile on his face.  He would say that there's no need to be nervous, but that would be a lie bordering on blasphemy. He also wouldn't tell her he could feel her fear growing because she already knew he did, and she was working so hard to act the opposite way, he wouldn't take that away from her. She wanted to die proudly, he understood that.  
  
Feral, Stefanie's smirk lifts to match his adjective as if on cue. It was a habit from photographers shouting tropes and metaphors as directions--"Naughty!", "Bubbly!","Sassy schoolteacher!" "Delicate flower!", "Virgin Mary!". Hey, no one ever said all artists have to be unique. They never would be if they didn't master the form first.  
  
Brushing her hand up her royal purple skirt in a careless gesture, she nods as she murmurs back after another sip, "I like that, feral. And the word hidden. To be honest, Marcus, I've been marketing my beauty since I was thirteen."   
  
She chuckles under her breath and turns, taking a few steps away from him until her back presses into the glass. Frost chills the nape of her neck. Her smile widens. Breath underwritten and soft in her exposed throat, she toasts him.  
  
"Although, that wasn't my first marketable skill--I don't suppose there's music? I'm from Salzburg, white wine and silk sheets seems incomplete without Piano Concerto No. 32 in the background."  
  
Again, he wasn't surprised. A woman with such beauty in a career based primarily on looks (though not entirely, money and influence played a more than substantial part), it did not strike Marcus odd that she had learned young. The ease in which she strode forward earlier tonight into a room of vampires spoke of it.  
  
At her question, he gestured with the hand holding the wine glass to the room adjacent to the one they were in. It housed a modern sound system that he never used and a record player.  
  
"Please," he encouraged, taking another sip and then following her into the room.  
  
"I'm not much for music but Theo and his current lover," well it sounded better than human, "share an affinity for it. What do you play?"   
  
After taking a leisurely sip of the glass and watching him gesture, she realizes he's waiting for her to lead. It might be symbolic, but pleasure flushes her cheeks. After all, Marcus didn't need to wait for her--didn't need to do anything but kill her, and he'd have upheld the bargain--but he acts a gentleman. Didn't it mean more he chose it not from necessity?  
  
Smiling in surprise of the record player, she leaves the near-empty crystal on a table away from the vinyl and begins rifling carefully through the supplied sheets.   
  
"Piano," she says offhand, "I taught it actually."

Marcus' gaze darts to her fingers. Yes, he could see it. They sported no calluses one would expect from playing most string instruments, and an European woman from Salzburg and a high class upbringing would never deign to play percussion instruments, not seriously at least. The musculature of the palm, particularly between the thumb and the center, was also more defined from usual, no doubt from the playing of octaves and the general hand position.

He never had much patience for instruments. He was the second son of a Lord growing up, another lifetime ago, his passion back then had been sword fighting and horseback riding. His being learned came later, as did his outsider's appreciation of music. The latter didn't remain in his life, even before he was turned.

Stef decides quickly that if she was going to ask him about the (apparent) coven, she wasn't starting with how much difference there was between "lover" and "pampered pet."  
  
Setting the needle when she found Mozart, she continues genially, casual (she hopes it was), "How do you walk in the sun? It's a potion, right?"  
  
"Yes," he nods, "though you'll find the sun will still bother you. I've been using the potion for almost two centuries, it used to be a daily dose, then weekly, now it's closer to a month, though it also varies from vampire to vampire." He takes another sip, his drinking far more slower than hers.  
  
"Is that another thing you will procure from the D'Greys instead?"  
  
Nodding, languid and carefree (she supposes "vampire to vampire" was an interesting phrase to be introduced to her vocabulary), she raises her fingers to tap and pat along the wood table, ghosting the melody out as she watches the revolving arm.   
  
"I would...prefer to take the first dose instantly, if you have enough." She admits quietly, now finishing the melody and turning around to step closer to him.   
  
"I do," he answered as he heard her heart spike with a step towards him. The sound of her beating heart played out a rhythm much more appealing to him than the one currently being played by the record player. Blood rushed through her veins uninhibited. Her heart was healthy her, arteries clear; it was clear she took care of herself.

Just one step, and she still knows her heart skipped ten feet higher. Meeting his eyes, she adds, "I suppose that's a silly question. You were responsible for that girl downstairs--how new was she?"  
  
The corner of her mouth twitches up.

He tapped out the beat against the glass with his fingers as he answered, "Truthfully, I'm not too sure. No more than a week. I found Raina wandering the streets frenzied. Her maker got careless, probably didn't mean to turn her," he sighed, obviously displeased at the carelessness.  
  
"It happens occasionally, but she's adjusting. I think she's got revenge on the mind, personally," he mused, the latter part more of a thought expressed aloud than conversation. Revenge was a powerful motivator. Disastrous, to everyone involved, but powerful. He would know.  
  
Eyes drawn to the rhythm he picks up, a few taps of his finger were enough to let her know it wasn't the soothing, steady beat of Mozart. Curious. his fingers seem to be matching her brea--ah, oh. Her heartbeat.  
  
Well, it wasn't like she wasn't used to everyone in the vicinity being able to hear that apart from her. Spinning on her heel, she hums the rest of the song as she finishes her drink, then slips closer to him. Could she ask him to dance? That would be strange; her dancing to Mozart, him dancing to the staccato in her chest.     
  
A brief smile crosses her lips as she stalls in front of him, looking to the bed across the way over his shoulder. It didn't exactly gel with the stories she'd heard of Marcus Ellwood--his picking up an innocent person and teaching her control--but who says people couldn't change, right?     
  
(And if it was an act, it doesn't make he any less helped, does it?)   After a long glance up him, she tilts her head and asks lower, "And how old are you?"  
  
"I was born in the year of our Lord," he restrained a chuckle at his own choice of words, neither mocking not earnest, Marcus had a way of phrasing that made one doubt whether he ever spoke the truth (he did so frequently), "1722. In England, in case you hadn't already surmised or been told."  
  
It was hardly a secret after all. Among the many things he was not willing to talk about, that was not one of them. Besides, the bloodshare exposed a person far more intensely than any shared secrets could. Some vampires could even taste a person's memories through the blood and see the image, not only feel the emotions as they ransack the body.  
  
Oh, what's this? Marcus admitting he has emotions? Yes, well, they exist somewhere under the ten tons of evil. Now he did smirk.  
  
"A blip, really, I'm acquainted with a vampiress turned in the 12th century." He paused, gauging her reaction and wondering if she could really comprehend the expanse of time that was. The answer was, of course, no.  
  
"And time doesn't fly, dear."  
  
Licking her bottom lip as she looks down, she lets out a whistle. 1722...so he was three hundred and five...maybe six soon. If his birthday was soon...wouldn't that be ironic? How many birthdays this week was she spending in strange, fancy hotels.with gorgeous balconies, anyway? There was one sip left of foam from how quickly she'd been swiveling it, she pulls the glass off her lips. Her breath was fog on the crystal, warmth she's shivering with. Warm became hot fast, and heat burns, like flames...  
  
Or maybe she's shivering by how close she is to Marcus now, but he hasn't moved. Was it rude of her to be asking so many questions and then barely reacting? Did he care? She leans, then let's the glass float away so it sets nearer to the bed. He probably doesn't; he probably realizes she's still looking for the question that *will* make her react.   
  
(Was it going to hurt?)

She'd had nothing to say for the potential eternity that lay before her, and Marcus confirmed what he had suspected before about Stefanie. The young woman was no longer entirely here. Like a ghost, shadow, or mere reflection of her formal self, she walked the Earth thinking it had nothing to offer her anymore. At least, nothing while she was yet like this, human.  
  
With one glance around the room, she looked back at the golden sheets and thought about how she'd like to die. It would be a work of art, like the hotel rooms they found stars in. There were white flowers in a crystal vase. If she was directing this photoshoot, it would be shattered against the wall, the petals strewn in the sheets, falling on the floor, wine bottle tipped and spilling on the marble. She'd be on the silk, hair loose, heels off, gown splattered and arranged with blood. It should be loud, but she has no gun--so she'll settle for sudden, for a death that cut down youth and beauty too soon. That was the only way to be a legend.  
  
She walks away from him now to reach for a pin in her hair, pulling the sharp steel to her finger tip. Whispering, " _Dulcique veneno subito mortem attulit_ ," the wine glass caught in her vision, she pricks her finger to add her blood to the foam and wine. It fizzes, then cools, the same ice white as before. Her eyes back on Marcus as she licks her finger clean, she just nods at him.  
  
She presumes if he'd needed more of an invitation, her blood free in the air had been plenty. Walking away from him and towards the bed, he turned slightly on his heels to follow her path with a curious gaze. The smell of her blood hit the air, delicious and sweet and he knew she was ready. Stefanie spoke soft words in Latin, and Marcus recognized a spell. She added her own blood to what was left of her wine. She had finally chosen a way to die. Physically, that was. Her eyes had been bereft of life by the time he met her.  
  
Marcus steps forward, closing the distance between them until he was next to her by the bed. He took the hand of the finger she had pricked, like a princess ready to succumb to an eternal sleep but knowing there would be no prince coming to wake her. A drop of blood no bigger than the point of a pen remained on her finger. Leaning his head slowly after breaking their gaze again, he took the tip of her finger in his mouth to lick it off as well.  
  
There it was, where her life was hidden. The tiny drop tasted of desire as well as fear. Just a sample, but her blood would be filled with everything she had ever felt. The metallic taste of her blood seems to melt to nothingness as she considers his expression tasting her fingertip. The want, the bliss and a hint of knowing regret on his mouth was mesmirizing to her. All that from a simple taste?  
  
Straightening his head again, and with a hand still on her wrist, he led them both to the bed which she had so requested. Sitting down, he moved her hair off to one side of her neck again, traced the vein that pulsed so tantalizingly. Three hundred years and the want was still as strong.  
  
"Lay down."   
  
She follows without a word. Vampires do live harder, she reminds herself, harsh and heavy and greedy to gulp down every inch of it. It sounds like a lullaby, beckoning her foreword with the strains of the record turning itself echoing, harmonizing. It's everything she wants now; to live so full she sucks the marrow out of it.   
  
(Ironic the price she had to pay was death, wasn't it? But she likes that, she likes spiting Death in the same act she was spiting Antonio, Ansel, Kyle, her brother, her father, and every other man who had ever held her back.)  
  
Shivering as Marcus caresses her vein again, this time with intent as apparent as his want, she lays one hand on his shoulder to steady her  removing her heels one at a time. Tossing them over her own, Stefanie turns to lay down. She was careful to do it deliberately, refuses to just fall onto the comforter, controls every motion of her descent. Sliding backwards, she regards his gaze with one of trepidition and excitement on her own mouth. Her hand strays off his shoulder as she moves down, tracing his chest through his expensive shirt.   
  
Pillows catch her, her hair billowing around her.   
  
He follows her as she moves backwards, climbing over her. One knee between her legs and one at her side, his hand passes through her hair, the clean scent of her shampoo mixing with the blood kept just underneath the surface of the fragile skin. The hand returned to her neck, passing his thumb across her throat while the other traveled down her shoulder, down her arms, a touch softer than most thought vampires capable of.   
  
This had to be different from every other feeding, he had to drink her in, every single bit of her, not merely her blood, and she would then do the same to him. So he'd be gentle. Surprisingly to most, he still knew how to be.  
  
He leans in to her neck, his nose tracing the same vein as before, and then his mouth. His lips press against her pulse, knowing the blood would flow that much easier in his mouth, helped along by gravity. Pulling back once more, he knew she had to see his face.

Staring up as his eyes dilate, turn red and black and monstrous, Stefanie feels her throat catch breath and has to stall her fingers from leaping to grace his open mouth. The canines would have torn her skin again, but she just hears a quiet hum of approval echoed in the base of her neck. It sounds strange, reminiscent of Shakespeare and his witches. By the pricking of this thumb, something wicked this way comes...

Opening his mouth, extending his fangs as his eyes turned as black as night, his face contorted, he leaned back in and sunk his fangs into her neck and begun to drink.

He tears into her neck instead. (But that proves it anyway.) She expects pain -- is it strange to say she even expects pleasure? -- but remains unprepared for the rush, the awkward squeezing and sucking, the blood bottling between holes much too small for all he's getting out of them. Heart screaming at her to stop, the hand he doesn't have pinned she raises to his back, pulling him closer. He was right. This wasn't like sex. It...was more akin to making love, she realizes, only more intimate yet. Love isn't the only emotion she can feel rushing out; in fact, there's too many to name, by some mercy's grace.  
  
Sorrow was the strongest taste, it overtook almost everything else at the beginning. Her grief, her mourning, sadness and helplessness poured into his mouth. Life was suffering, and he tasted it. The death of so many as she lived on, unable to interfere...the anger came next.  
  
She was an enraged, fierce, and fearsome woman who held back no blows. Strong, temperamental, and underneath it all violent. Genetic, he realized soon. It fueled a fire in her chest that was nearly extinguished before, one he would will back to roaring flames, if only because of how it good it tasted. Vampires detested fire, but Marcus found himself craving it.  
  
It was made of passion. Anger wasn't the fuel, it was passion. He drank lust in and was reminded why most vampires couldn't separate bloodsharing from fucking. It was a high unlike any other, threatening to make his cold lifeless heart beat again, but it never did. And Stefanie held a lot of passion, more so than anything he'd ever tasted. A passion dulled, now brought back to life in his mouth. His hand reached for her side, his thumb brushing against ribs that caged her beating heart.

Murmurs and gasps pepper her lips as she relishes in the surge, wills him to take more, press her harder into the bedframe, smother her with everything he took.  
  
He knew he would resent what would come next. Love. She loved too much, to a fault, despite what she might portray herself as. She wanted to trust in people, couldn't help but fall. And she had fallen, and tumbled and rolled in it. There was happiness, everything that brought her joy, everything she enjoyed out of life...  
  
And then there was sadness again.  
  
He pulled back, licking a stray drop out of the corner of his mouth and then cleaned around the puncture wounds, catching blood with his tongue, flicking over the holes and feeling a shudder similar to hers travel down his spine.  
  
Her turn.  
  
Marcus pulled back and thought of giving her his wrist but reconsidered. He had been considerate up until now, and there was no reason to stop. A neck for a neck it would be.

It's a shock when he pulls back. And she isn't sure she's not relieved when blood starts dripping against her mouth. She drowns in it, too tired, too drowsy, too pleased he listened to her to do anything but take it back. She's glad he went first, though (and glad was strange to feel, but then, so was feeling). The exhaustion now seeping through her, she can't focus on the numerous emotions feeding into her from him. They were alike in grief, she understands, and shivers with the lonely thought they might be alike in vengeance too.

He undid the buttons of his shirt one by one and then shrugged out of it, letting it fall down his shoulders and taking his arms out of his sleeves. With his fingernail he cut into his own skin across his neck. And holding off from healing, he leaned in again, exposing his neck, exposing himself, as the blood dripped on her lips, until her mouth covered his neck and she began to drink.  
  
It was all too much and all too fast and not enough all at once and she gurgles abruptly, the blood sticking in her throat. It's the first realization she has of what she's doing--drinking from a vampire's neck. That awareness strikes harsh, hot in her throat and she coughs, trying to turn her head and swallow at the same time. (A contradiction if ever there was one).

He exhales heady as she started drinking from him, her eagerness brought on by the surprise of the taste, of the feeling. Marcus suspected she would be weak, and the blood half fell into her mouth as much as she sucked from his neck. He closes his eyes as he holds the back of her head for support, his fingers burying in her hair and stroking right above the nape of her neck almost soothingly, willing her to take more, and more.  
  
Her eyes are open, stuck on her icy glass, with tears she doesn't remember gathering pearled in their corners. Tears she doesn't know if their for her or him. Both, probably. Marcus had lost people close to him too, she knew that now (doesn't know how she does, except to say she recognized it in his taste, which was bizarre to think). It didn't matter if centuries had passed; those wounds haven't healed. But she doesn't shed a single one of them, so she thinks it's all right. Fingers grope on the bed for the glass. (Last time she had an antidote, but last time she had someone willing to apologize, even if it was by fucking her.)  
  
Marcus felt her still, felt her in his own blood, and their essences mixed together. Born of tragedy, forged in fire, she and him connected through the grief and the loss that had been his most initial protest against this. Stefanie mercifully could not detect the rush as she was drank from, not yet. Marcus with his acute senses felt every single one, painfully, as his blood spilled into her mouth, painting her lips and teeth a crimson shade.  
  
The joy, small but there, that hurt more than all their grief put together.

Stefanie can't find energy to initially even raise her neck. Marcus was heavy. (Ha! As if her brother's soul wasn't ten times this weight. Tony related to that. But then Tony went and made himself even heavier--), she mumbles, hears herself mumbling, and wills her throat closed again. Heartbeat static in her ears (she loves this part of the piano concierto, her mother had taught her it and looks like an angel when she sang)--her breathing flustered, head pounding, dizzy and hazy,  her eyelashes crumpled and cheeks enflamed as she gets her wine glass (in flame, ha!, just like Marcel--)

He exhales again so as not to gasp, and opened his eyes when he was sure they were clear, pulling back as she gurgles, as she's finished. He lifts, unaware of when they had pressed so tightly together, of when the hand not at her head held her waist, and watched as she reaches off the bed.

Nails scrambling around the stem, Stef chokes down her poisonous pollen all at once.

 _It all just needs to stop. Now._  
  
Marcus had never felt more compelled to lie; to tell Stefanie it would all be alright, but he stops himself. Stroking her head still for a few more moments as her eyes closed, as her breathing and heart slowed, he pressed a kiss to her cheek (not to her lips, for he was the farthest thing from a prince, and she would wake on her own) and moved away from the bed.   
  
"Good night," he spoke quietly, instead of rest in peace, because death, that was only the beginning.


	3. Sedatives

Irene didn't know when she woke up on an otherwise normal winter morning that there would be anything out of the ordinary. Of course, Irene liked to think that she was extraordinary enough to spice up life, but she couldn't deny that humans operated on routine. It was just the way things were. A person woke up, got ready, and then headed to work or school in this society. There was very little room for variation and only the most gifted of persons knew how to change it up without having their life fall apart into uncontrollable chaos. Contrary to popular opinion, Irene wasn't scared of routine or against it. Irene had a morning routine of her own, and it wasn't that unique. She got up like most people, checked her phone/sent Dillon a good morning pic text of her best kissy face (whenever she wasn't sleeping half next to him, half on him), washed up, and got ready, to summarize it as quickly as she could. Relatively normal, morning wake up routine. It was so normal, she could probably say it in French without too much of a problem. Je me wash et je me brush- easy! The difference was that after she was done she headed down the hallway, rounded a corner, and went to dress and make up her mother.

"Thank you, Beth," Irene told her mother's nurse as she walked in and the woman walked out. Beth was a wonderful woman, a brilliant professional, but she couldn't tell suede from silk and was fully against make-up. Irene had been dressing her mother for years, starting right around the time she decided not to give a fuck about her father and his stupid rules. Besides, it's not like he noticed, his room was on another floor.

"Good morning, mum," Irene greeted her mother by kissing her cheek and then heading to the closet. Her mother never responded verbally, though sometimes she would pat her cheek, similar to the way she had when Irene was a kid, and Irene knew it would be a good day. Gordon told her that their mom sometimes called for her but it was never when she was around.

"That makes sense," Gordon had explained with a sad smile, "she misses you when you're gone." Irene liked to think so too, but there was no way to know without asking their mother and she was never fully there even when she talked. Besides, Gordon didn't like to talk about their mother. Like their father, Gordon felt embarrassed by their mother, and Irene knew that he felt embarrassed by her too, no matter how hard he tried not to be. Irene and their mother didn't fit the description of what their father wanted out of his perfect life. It was so boring, honestly. Irene wished her father would hate her for an original reason. At least it was better than because she wasn't really his. Nope, unfortunately she was 100% his, well 50%. That's why she loved to rub it in his face: his own loins produced such a disappointment! Eat your heart out!

They weren't immediate disappointments of course, otherwise her parents would have never gotten married in the first place. Her mother was beautiful, rich, and a boisterous and fun woman if what her grandparents said was true. Turns out her spontaneity had more to do with some mental health problems and self-medicating. Her drugs now kept her better but she was always out of it. When her mother was good, her father had been good. Now that she wasn't and hadn't been for more than half a decade, he barely looked at her. Better that way, she had less opportunity to spit in his face. She would rather not have to move out before 18 and before she had finished siphoning some money into a personal account. Besides, there was no way she was leaving her mom alone in his care. The only reason he didn't send her to a home was that he was half scared of her magic. The other half of him was disgusted by it. Well, no sir, that wasn't happening on her watch. Irene would take care of herself and her mother, and they would both look fabulous during it.

"I'm thinking beige today," Irene contemplated as she looked through the closet, "I think it'll accentuate your skin instead of wash you out look," Irene walked back to her mom and laid the fabric against her arm. Beth took her mom on walks sometimes but there wasn't that much sun overhead in England so she was a little pale but Irene worked with it.

"The trick is to play up your flaw, own it, and make it the best thing about you instead of trying to distract away from it. Obviously, this doesn't work if the flaw is acne but for example mum, your nose. Huge and a little crooked but do I ever make your eyes or lips the center of attention? No, well, your eyes are beautiful so yes they co-star but the point is strong features, strong character!" Irene was arranging an outfit as she talked, comparing piece to piece, judging which one would be better (and comfortable too, her mom spent a long time just sitting down).

"As for me, I have huge chipmunk cheeks, huge! And a round face, which immediately adds like ten pounds to my perceived weight but, do I ever hide them? Nay!" Irene grinned in example, poking her cheeks with her fingers, "I highlight the cheek bone and make sure to always smile my brightest and voila! So you've got paler skin, let's embrace it! I can make it work!" The last she said in a sing-song voice as she skipped over to her mum ( tough feat in heels), helping her to stand so she could begin dressing her. Irene never stopped speaking as she did. She talked about everything and anything that would come to mind.

"Nadia's doing better, I mean she's a little cranky now but I would assume having your boyfriend point a gun at you would be stressful enough. Speaking of boyfriends!, Dillon stopped by yesterday, by which I mean he snuck in and then we snuck out, see I promised I would go see this play he's in, like a community theater sort of thing in his neighborhood. I don't know mum, there's just something about Shakespearean actors, hmm. I'm crazy about him. At times that's all too literal, I get so intense I worry I'll scare him off but I mean come on look at me." Irene giggled at her own tease, moving her mother to sit down once she was finished dressing her so she could put on the shoes.

"I wish you could meet him, I think you would like him. He's a total ham of course, he'd probably bring flowers and kiss your hand and all that jazz. And no, dad's not met him. Gordon once when I crashed over at his apartment one night and needed a ride to school the next morning, long story, not my finest hour." Irene finished doing the straps of the shoes and then moved to sit in front of her mother so she could begin to apply the make-up.

"Speaking of, I've been contemplating what I'm gonna do this year for the big football match. Remember last year we choreographed an entire dance? This year I'm thinking bigger, I'm thinking fireworks, a parade, a song about our team's imminent victory and the poor life choices of the other's. I want a big boom! What do you think?"

When her mother began to respond, Irene was so stunned that she dropped the brush she was holding.

"I like it," Delilah responded, a vacant smile on her face. She didn't look at Irene so she wasn't sure whether her mother was even talking to her or comprehending anything she said.

"You do?" Irene asked tentatively.

Delilah smiled still, nodding and still looking over Irene's shoulder, "I once streaked across an ice rink, just the skates nothing else." Delilah giggled and Irene's mouth dropped open in shock and awe. She spent a couple of minutes in silence, staring at her mother's smiling face before Delilah tilted her head and finally looked at Irene.

"What's the matter sweetie?"

Tears pearled at the corners of Irene 's eyes, but she quickly shook her head and smiled, "Absolutely nothing. I'm just...mum, you streaked?" Irene felt herself overcome with a fit of giggles she quickly realized were taking the place of sobs. Wiping at her eyes quickly, she picked up the brush she had dropped in her surprise.

"My friends were supposed to do it with me but they chickened out," Delilah explained and Irene giggled again when she realized this was the most words she'd ever heard her mother say in a row in three years.

"I'm not gonna streak," Irene shook her head, a grin from ear to ear, "even I have limits apparently." There were few of them and far in between, but she did possess them. A truly limitless person was too scary a concept to consider this early in the morning. Sure, she'd accidentally flashed a friend or two, her favorite bathing suit left little to the imagination but outright streaking? No way.

"Well, maybe when you're older," Delilah decided with a little sigh, closing her eyes as Irene moved to put on her eyeshadow.

"Not too much darling, I don't want to look like a low end prostitute."

Irene laughed and then gasped before she teased, "So only a high end escort?"

Delilah tapped her nose and then winked, "Precisely."

After Irene finished putting her mother's make-up on, now with vocal approval from Delilah, she made sure to grab a quick picture with her mobile. As delighted as Irene was, she was wary of how long this would actually last. Irene wasn't even too sure how she was this lucid. But somehow she was perfectly fine. Irene should have realized that her father was keeping her mother under on purpose. The thought angered her so much that she almost marched out of there and went to conform her father head on. Before she could take two steps towards the door, however, Delilah stopped her with a question.

"Are you free right now, sweetheart?"

Irene nodded, "Yeah, well, I've got to get going to school in half an hour but-"

Delilah nodded, "Of course, yes, with your friends. I was just wondering if you could walk me today. Out in the gardens? I'd like to keep talking."

Irene's heart soared. Smiling again, she nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah, of course." And she would talk to her father about getting Delilah off heavier medication so she could be like this more often. And if he didn't agree well fuck him, she'd find a way all by herself.

Putting her mother in a warm jacket, Irene helped her stand up and then kept her steady by keeping hold of her arm as they walked down the stairs together and then out through the patio doors to the garden in the backyard. Irene preferred to call it backyard, if only so she could sound like a teenager instead of using the term 'grounds'. It wasn't that expansive anymore, and when Irene thought of grounds she thought of more impressive lawns, but it was nevertheless more than just a common backyard. Usually it was green, lots of green, with dottings of yellow, pink, and red from all the flowers the gardeners kept blooming. Currently most of the plans were covered to protect them from the snow that was atypical of London even in winter. Those that could survive it had some frost that hadn't yet melted with the morning sun. The rest was wet grass and the gravel that allowed a person easy access through the garden.

Delilah beamed at Irene's side and not for the first time wondered how lonely it must be for her mother all alone up in her room. Irene couldn't think of a worse way to live in her opinion. And given that she and her mother were apparently so alike, she realized it must be brutal for her mother as well.

"So, tell me more about your friends," Delilah requested with a smile, squeezing Irene's arm encouragingly. Irene didn't need to be told twice be for she was telling her mother all she could about Nadia, Alisha, Trent, Reid, even Justin!, as well as Al, Dev, Liza, Tony-- anybody she could think of. Her mother laughed when she told her about Deval and how they were practically boyfriends, and declared Reid had excellent taste when she told her how he called her his favorite blonde.

As they neared the center of the garden, Delilah started shivering more making Irene concerned that the jacket wasn't enough.

"Are you too cold, mum?" Irene asked, helping Delilah sit down on a white stone bench.

"Just a little, sweetheart it's quite alright."

Irene judged the way she was shivering and decided better not risk it, "Come on, mom, let's go back inside."

"Oh no, please, we've barely spoken, no, I'll be fine," Delilah insisted.

Irene pursed her lips and decided, "Alright, wait right here though I'll run inside and fetch you a warmer coat." After Delilah nodded, Irene dashed back inside as quick as her boots allowed. She picked a coat from the coat closet downstairs so she wouldn't have to run all the way up to her room, andand then headed back to the gardens, her cheeks pink and her hair bouncing against her neck. Once she reached the stone bench where she'd left her mother she stopped abruptly when she saw her mother wasn't there.

"Mom?" Irene asked, looking around to see if she missed her when she was jogging up, "Mom, are you there?" Irene raised her voice a little, walking forward and looking every which way.

"Mooom?"

Irene began searching through the whole garden, shouting for her mother but no answer came back. Now fully panicked, Irene's voice was loud enough to reach inside and draw the attention of several servants and worst of all, her father. Irene saw him as she reached the patio doors again, her heart skipping not one but two beats before it saw fit to fall to her stomach.

"What's going on, what are you doing?"

Irene's lip trembled in place before she said, "I don't know where mom is."

"What?!" Elijah barked, and Irene tried not to flinch as she swallowed a lump.

"You've lost her?!"

"I haven't lost her, I just can't find her, there's a difference!" Irene huffed, and went to move past her father to go inside the house and grab her phone when he wrenched her back around by the elbow.

"What were you doing out there with her, I've expressively forbidden you from-"

"A whole lot of shit, that doesn't mean I ever listen to you! Maybe she wouldn't feel the need to run away if you didn't have her locked up here!"

Her father fumed, his eyes narrowing as he hissed, "I do it for her own good, and all of ours."

Irene scoffed in a high pitch that wasn't normal to her and then wrenched her arm back. Elijah Burns only did things when they convenienced him, and no one else. That ours was as empty as gambling man's wallet. A bulimic's stomach. An 80 year old's vagina. A movie theater during a matinee showing of an Adam Sandler movie.

Point made.

"You talk like that to me again, and-"

"And you'll what?" Irene challenged, "Lock me up too? Pump me full of sedatives until I don't know what's going on around me? If anything's driven mum bonkers is you."

"What's going on?"

Irene inhaled through her nose as she saw Gordon walk up, wary and almost frightened. She didn't understand how he could have so little balls or what he would even need to he afraid of to begin with.

Elijah stood straighter, taking a step back as he continued to leer down at Irene, "Your sister's let your mother escape."

Elijah never called Irene by her name, nor did he ever refer to her as his daughter. Delilah's daughter's, Gordon's sister that too, but his favorite name to call her was simply 'you'. The amount of loathing that man could pack in that single syllable was impressive. It was as if he looked at her like she was shit under his shoe, nothing remotely human. He never called her anything else, but 'you' was still a form of acknowledgement.

"I'll sort this out, look in her spots," Gordon assured their father as Irene began to frown, "keep the press quietest, don't worry."

Elijah nodded with a stiff neck and after another despicable look he moved back inside the house. Gordon looked at her, half apologetic and half angry before mentioning for Irene to follow him as they walked to the front of the house toward his car.

"What did you mean her spots?" Irene asked in a small voice, following her brother close behind, "What's going on, Gordon, why did she leave?"

Gordon gritted his teeth, she could practically hear it, but he answered her nevertheless despite his anger.

"This isn't the first time she's escaped Irene, she does everything she can to get away. Just be grateful she didn't hurt anyone this time."

Irene narrowed her eyes and came to her mother's defense almost immediately as she snapped, "Mum wouldn't hurt me!"

"No? Just trick you then? Cuz that's what she did, didn't she?" Gordon looked in his pockets for the keys as they neared his car and clicked a button to unlock it. Without looking behind him he continued.

"She wanted to hear more about you, how things were going, she called you pumpkin, then she got you to take her out of her room and ran the first moment you turned your back. Is that not what happened?"

Irene 's throat closed up from the moment he started explaining, her head shaking in stubborn refusal. Tears dropped to her cheeks as she managed to talk again.

"She- she wouldn't do that!"

"Damn it, Irene!" Gordon turned on his heel to face her, almost bumping into her, "she lied! She lied to you, she tricked you, she used you! It doesn't matter how much we love her, she doesn't care about us. All she cares about is doing whatever she has to do to get her next hit."

Gordon turned away from her and left Irene standing there motionless except for the sobs that escaped her mouth and the sniffling that kept her nose from running too badly. Gordon was just worried, he was angry, and he was brainwashed by their father, that's what it was. With determination, Irene ran to the passenger door and pulled it open as he was starting the car. She couldn't prove her brother wrong if she wasn't there and she needed to.

"Irene get out of the bleeding car."

"You're wasting time, don't you want to find mum? Drive!"

She could see that he wanted to argue further but instead he put the car in drive and pulled out of the gravel driveway, out the gate, and onto the streets.

After what felt like an eternity of looking in every shithole in London, the kind even Irene would never have dared to step foot in on a Friday night, they found their mother. The drive had been silent except for Gordon talking on his mobile to friends and acquaintances to see if they've spotted a woman in the description that Irene provided her brother. Finally after checking, they got a heads up and checked it out.

Gordon warned Irene to keep close to him as they walked inside, but she stubbornly remained a full ten steps behind. The lounge, if you could even call it a lounge, was dingy and full of smoke that obscured five feet in front of her face. Men and women with red eyes and yellow teeth stared from the stained green cushions they sat and laid on, never raising a hand to stop them or saying a word in concern. Irene coughed and waved her hand in front of her face to try and clear away the smoke buy ultimately didn't succeed.

Moving past a curtain of beads after her.brother, Irene saw him already speaking to a man with a curly beard that reached his chest and passing him money. Irene stepped closer to the middle of the room and saw her mother laying down on the floor, staring up at thirty ceiling with heavy-lidded eyes. Irene didn't know how she could keep her eyes open for that long, because the smoke was already making Irene tear up. After all, that had to be the reason.

Barefoot and topless save a bra, Delilah tilted his head and looked up at Irene. With trembling lips, Irene looked away as Gordon stepped closer and began to reach for their mother.

"You little shit," Delilah slurred, pulling her hands away from her son to keep from leaving and Irene gasped, "you leave me here! Leave!"

"Come on, mom," Gordon pulled her up to her feet and Delilah saw Irene again.

"You told him, didn't you? Didn't you?! You filthy cunt, how dare you?!" Delilah moved towards Irene but she was too shocked to move. Gordon managed to hold her back but their mother struggled. Kicking her legs out and arching her back to try and get away from Gordon, and to try and hurt Irene.

"I trusted you!," Delilah cried as she kicked and scratched at Gordon but it wasn't him he was talking to anymore, "you told him where I was, you good for nothing bitch, how can you do this to me?! Let me go!" Now she did mean Gordon. Her insults returned more to him as he managed to keep her moving, dragging her out of that room almost practically by her hairs. No one did anything to interfere with the madness taking place, enraptured as they were with their own madness.

"Irene, let's go," Gordon urged and this time she didn't need to be told twice or bother challenging him.

When they got to the car again, Delilah had gone from screaming and kicking to crying and pleading. Irene pulled the car around to the alley, something she would have normally been excited about but now she was just doing her best not to throw up or crash into a wall with her blurred vision.

Irene watched as Gordon put their mother in the backseat, held her hands with one hand and used his weight to keep her pinned down as he reached for a syringe and the small bottle of tranquilizer.

"Here," Gordon passed both of them to Irene in the front seat and instructed, "take the cap off the needle, stick it through the cap, turn the bottle upside down and then pull back 10 CCs, it's on the side."

Irene nodded taking the cap off with her mouth as she couldn't trust her trembling fingers not to somehow prick themselves with the needle. She also didn't bother telling Gordon she already knew how to do this from first hand experience; she didn't want to worry him further by reminding him of their mom. It didn't escape her that the way Gordon had to drag their mother out of there, half naked, kicking and protesting and hurting him, was similar to the way he had come for her at that bar. Irene bit down on her bottom lip hard to keep a sob at bay and then handed the syringe over to Gordon.

With precise dexterity, Gordon found a vein and injected the tranquilizer. The result was immediate: Delilah's pleads turned into babbled before eventually ceasing altogether, her breathing even and her eyes going back to their distant stare into space. Gordon laid their mom down on the backseat and then returned to the front seat, Irene climbing over to the passenger side and putting on her seatbelt.

The drive home pass busy streets felt even longer than the rest of the morning had. Irene kept looking outside the window, unable to face her brother as she continued to bring her hands up to wipe away tears and snot from her nose. The windows were tinted as much as the law allowed, Gordon was a lawyer after all he couldn't be seen  flouting the law so the entire image felt like someone had added a night filter to it. Irene had to look at the clock on the car's dashboard to check what time it was. It was barely noon.

Finally able to look at her brother, she noticed the scratch marks on his cheek and neck as well as a purpling bruise on his forearm that she wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't taken off his suit jacket to cover their mother."

"I'm sorry," Irene whispered, feeling sudden shame over the entire thing.

"Don't be, it's not your fault."

Irene didn't believe that. After all, she had fallen for it. She had so badly wanted to believe their mother was really okay that she let herself be fooled by someone she thought she trusted. Funny, how that was happening more often recently. Did the saying 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice' work when it was different people?

"She needs help, Gordon," Irene sniffed, "holding her in a room doesn't help her."

"Irene don't you think dad's already tried?"

She frowned, "So he says."

Gordon snapped, "So I saw. Irene, mom's been in and out of rehab centers, and psychiatric hospitals all our lives, and she had times when she was really good and times she was really bad. When you started school, when that oddly dressed woman came to tell you about your magic, she was good, and had been good for some time but...I don't know maybe it was you leaving for school-"

Irene huffed, her voice hoarse, "So it is my fault!"

"No, Irene, of course not. It's not anyone's fault. She's ill, we've tried to help her. Nothing helps."

Irene sniffed and rubbed at her eyes again when she noticed that they were pulling up to the house. She was surprised to find there weren't any paparazzi around but remembered how Gordon said he would take care of it.

Unable to stick around any longer, the moment the car stopped she pushed open the door and let it close hard behind her while Gordon called her name, asking her to stop. Irene didn't stop, she ran inside the house and up the stairs and didn't stop until she was in her room. Closing the lock and sliding the deadbolt she had installed two summers ago in her foray into powertools, Irene threw herself on the bed and buried her face in a pillow and started to cry.


	4. Debts

**Eliza:** _Oivey. Whomever was at the door (three guesses who), they had impeccable timing. How had they known she was five seconds getting out of the shower? At least she wasn't getting *in_ , already had her clothes out. And granted, she had taken like...ten showers already that day. Maybe she was exaggerating. (She definitely had taken two baths.)

Granted, when she pulls long wet blonde hair back and piles it on her head - dressing in soft sweats - and opens the door, she realizes instantly where the impeccable timing came from.* Olivier! _An instant smile crosses her lips, but just because she sees a similar one on his face doesn't mean she doesn't spy the wince._ ...what?

 **Olivier:** Hm? _The immediate question somewhat wrongfoots him, hand braced on her wood doorframe and leaning casually. Or perhaps that was because he'd become used to seeing Eliza in plethora's of skin tight leather and lace. She looks more comfortable now...but also unmade. Still as observant ever, though, and that makes him smile._ Oh, it--

 **Eliza:** Let me guess. Public hallway. You'd prefer 'D'Grey'...or does that need, _she twists a drying curl around her finger,_ a 'Monsieur' on it?

 **Olivier:** _Smirking both because she was absolutely correct and because he was aware of the absurdity of it, he shrugs into the gold hinge._ Your royal highness is sufficient.

 **Eliza:** _Immediately stifling a snort, she wraps her burgundy sweater closer to her chest and tilts her head into her door. The soft smile on her lips is too genuine to be moved by his jest. When she looked into Olivier's eyes now, she saw only concern, gentle and subtle, though she was more touched with surprise at the apparent pride there. Why should he be proud of her?_ Not Mein Kampf?

 **Olivier:** _Another easy chuckle on his perked lips, he shakes his head only once._ To tell you the truth Eliza, _his voice is satin now, tone controlled,_ I'm not keen on being called 'father.'

 **Eliza:** Ah. _Oh, she doesn't for one second have to begin to wonder why. Though she realizes it was rude to leave the door open like this too, she was looking over his shoulder._

 **Olivier:** _Watching with an easy, quick eye jerk, he guesses as she had. They know each other too well._ Your father?

 **Eliza:** _Blue eyes leap back to hold his, and she nods reluctantly. Her smile is apologetic as she hedges._ He just was going to the store...

 **Olivier:** It's all right. _He reaches under his Armani jacket, brushing non existent snow and lint off as he reveals a small, blue book. Before he says a word, Eliza's snapped without seeing it._

 **Eliza:** It's not all right. I don't understand wh--

 **Olivier:** _Despite her raising tone, which he knows only too well right now he cannot seem to dismiss, he shakes his head. Maybe his eyebrows make it softer? He hopes?_ Eliza, sweetie, believe me. _A hand goes on his chest, pushing the journal over his heart. She seems to notice it for the first time._ Claude has more reasons than one not to be my greatest fan. I hold him to no standard to which I would not hold myself.

 **Eliza:** *About to protest, she stalls seeing the twist in his smirk. A beat falls as fresh air tickles the back of her neck. The bruise was purpled now. With Harper's personal attention, it would be gone in two days.

So she lifts her chin, retorting playfully,* Your royal highness has standards?

 **Olivier:** Aha- _brows peeking up and lip pressing flat against the back of his lips, he shakes his head instantly,_ -Few and far between, I assure you.

 **Eliza:** _As if struck by ... well, an extremely attractive Italian reclining and licking his lips, she smiles. It flutters, a thing of softness, as she adds under her breath,_ Oli...

 **Olivier:** *That, he know he shouldn't shake his head at, twist until it's gone and she feels smaller for compassion. Eliza had too much of that - she always had, but it was such a rare quality in his world, he wouldn't take it from her, anymore than he'd wanted too from Nadia.

So instead, he thinks he manages 'bashful' if only in his casual shrug and smirk, like he couldn't handle that. It's a lie, of course. Olivier D'Grey could handle anything.*

 **Eliza:** _When he doesn't answer her soft exhale, she finds herself looking curiously at the book even as she turns her shoulders to invite him in._ What book is that? _As if she hadn't gone back on the fact that she'd told her father she wouldn't let anyone in. She was sixteen, Eliza Culpeper Simmons, thank you darling, she *seriously?!_ wasn't going to be put in a parental bubble now.

(It was much too late for that.)

Besides, this was Olivier. Without him, she would be dead, or still in those--no, ignore that. Ignore the shiver. Mrs. Brackner would be dead. Devin might be...

 **Olivier:** Nadia's. *He says after double checking she genuinely wants him to come in. Part of him thinks he should protest: Claude had a right to protect his daughter after what she'd gone through, keep her with childhood friends and family; stuffed animals (she has a bear and wolf dangling from her hand, though it's the bracelet that interests Olivier), tik tok and bourbon.

The other part of him feels if he ignores her wish, it only reinforces her trauma. So he enters, let's her shut the door before he answers.* Nadia's. I just came to drop it off, ask if you could get it to her, really.

 **Eliza:** _Fiddling with the diamonds on her wrist as she locks the door, she hides the lock from Olivier's sight while she does. Two different muggle locks in addition to the spells her father taught her *and_ two new wards from Harper. This was probably the most secure flat for a mile...yet she hides the key back down her camisole all the same, her necklace spelled to keep it from being stolen or ripped off her neck, and still feels a shiver slip up her spine before she turns around. Yet her smile is great and wide when she does.* So, I'm just a messenger service now?

 **Olivier:** _Smirking as he walks with her to her living room, he answers just as lightly,_ Oh I was hoping to persuade you to make it a kiss-o-gram actually. _He undoes his jacket and lays the book on the coffee table before he sits. It plants in the glass, the gold lock bouncing in place and striking a book with black and white photograph of a Scottish ruin._ No chance of that then?

 **Eliza:** See, _she sits opposite him on the couch, pulling her pillow on to her lap and tucking her knees beneath it,_ that answers that question.

 **Olivier:** What question?

 **Eliza:** _That was so good. He was just - so good at that. He made it sound effortlessly as if he doesn't already know her question, had from the moment he walked in the door. Oh, D'grey._ Why didn't you just bring it to Nadia yourself?

 **Olivier:** Ah, that one. _A light curl plays on his lips as he watches her eyes narrow, shrewd. Eliza knew. Odd feeling. Tony usually was the only one who reads him so easily._ As I said. Hoping for a kiss-o-gram.

 **Eliza:** You're checking up on me.

 **Olivier:** _It's neither question nor accusation. Just a statement, with a world of emotion behind it. How dare he?, Olivier wonders mildly, or: What took so long?_ Yes. _He confirms._

 **Eliza:** And you aren't going to need go check up on Nadia?

 **Olivier:** _That wasn't an accusation either, Olivier knows to his sorrow as he watches her fingers curling around on the pillow. Eliza didn't feel she deserves his own compassion now--at least not more than Nadia does._ I have every intention of seeing Nadia, but being not in England at the moment, I thought she might want that back quicker.

 **Eliza:** _Her gaze follows his hand to the book, but only for a second. As fingers toy with weird tassels on the throw pillow she'd refurnished with that afternoon (were they always magenta or had she missed Alcott color-changing the purchases again?), she snaps her gaze back to his._ I'm fine, D'Grey. _It was a hollow statement, but Eliza doesn't waver._

 **Olivier:** I know you are. _Though his chin had raised to take the measure of her, weigh wishful thinking and optimism with truth, he finds no lie. She was fine. Fine, the word of the broken who'd found a way to cope in suffering, conditioned to pain, numb to it. The word of the damned survivors. The same thing he was when he let himself feel for even a moment._ But as I told you before...you don't have to hide, from me. I really...I do get it, Eliza. He shrugs, nods as she does in soft concurrence and suggests instead.* Besides. Maybe I'm here to spy on you for Hans.

 **Eliza:** _Was she hiding? She didn't know. Hiding entailed shame she thought, and she wasn't ashamed. They should be ashamed, they who took her those who weren't dead. Though...she didn't know what to think about Sam's family. Mrs. Roswell had always been so nice to her, supportive...the only one of them to listen to her when she tried to warn them. And what had she done to repay her? God. She rubs a hand over her forehead, then says first,_ I know. I just...don't feel ready to talk about it yet--I don't want to stop...thinking about how we won yet. _And then she burst into color, red cheeks, lips parting to reveal a pink mouth, eyes going wide and shining blue._ So you-- you uh, know we

 **Olivier:** _He laughs. But only once. He didn't want to make her feel smaller than she had to already feel; if anything, he'd been glad, beyond so._ Problem with werewolves, Eliza.

 **Eliza:** They're more chatty than teenage girls. I would know! _Huh. Did she count as that anymore? A teenage girl? Rubbing over her lip, she bites on her thumb. Then smiles at him._

 **Olivier:** An understatement, I think. _Easily, as he undoes his tie a little. It had been a long day with the press - he was looking forward to dinner with the very friend they discuss. If it wasn't for the impending return of her father, he would have invited Eliza along with him._ No details, please though.

 **Eliza:** Why not? _She teases, brightly,_ I mean, fan girls usually want every sordid dirty - and wait, you?

 **Olivier:** _He laughs in sheepish indignation._

 **Eliza:** Wow. His royal highness Olivier D'Grey doesn't desire details. Call the presses.

 **Olivier:** Had enough of that today, really. _He speaks idly, thinking of Amalie with a small smirk._ May even have met one with actual integrity.

 **Eliza:** I'll ignore that you made that sound like a bad thing.

 **Olivier:** It's not a bad thing. _He says easily, with a small smile._ Just an unusual thing.

 **Eliza:** _She eyes him for a long moment, clearly wanting to ask what it was he was up to, why her father distrusts him and yet is so chummy with Tony and then deciding: she trusted Olivier._ Unusual.

 **Olivier:** Noteworthy. _He nods, curious at the look in her eyes. It fell to him to speak next as if she were afraid of offending him, but couldn't let her thought drop either. The question seems to tangle itself in a knot behind her wet hair and screwed up gaze. So, it could only be on the one subject then._ You're wondering what my next move is.

 **Eliza:** _There's a pause and then a small, amused chuckle as she shakes her head._ Oh...D'Grey.

 **Olivier:** Am I wrong? _He says this quite pleasantly, despite the pit in his stomach. Eliza deserves the life she wants, as Nadia did, and Harper...as his brother did..._

 **Eliza:** No. _The words were soft. Lifting her knees, her arms wrap around her pillow and she rests her chin atop it, hugging tight._ Only you think it's...bad. I was thinking, rather...you saved me.

 **Olivier:** _He pops an eyebrow in surprise._

 **Eliza:** _Steadily,_ You saved Nadia.

 **Olivier:** _With a quick flick of his bottom lip,_ Eliza...

 **Eliza:** No, don't. _Knees and pillows plop down._

 **Olivier:** I don't think it's bad. _He says anyway, impertinent and off-put._ What it is, isn't good or bad--just...sometimes unpleasant, often wondrously rewarding...and necessary. _That he says resolutely, the belief the strongest of all. He eyes her, and she looks at the journal, then looks back at him. Amazed at how suddenly steady her wide gaze is, he stays silent. It was necessary. At times distasteful gave right to downright nasty. Stepping in as capo meant security for his brother, strength of position--so he didn't ... dwell on the unpleasant things. After all he'd done, didn't he owe it to the city to secure it for them anyway? Then others didn't need to do what he had. Eliza was thinking so intensely, Olivier feels her gaze burn. She doesn't look away. He wants a drink._

 **Eliza:** Why did you save Nadia? And me? _She arches an eyebrow._ Harper...I understand why you'd want to help him but--

 **Olivier:** _He rubs over his lip. Index finger extended, he points._ First. _His hand swings, and he cuts her off._ I didn't save either of you. Nadia got herself out, with some assistance from angels.

 **Eliza:** _She rolls her eyes. It's a good pretense. A fabulous facade for her quick breath and the discomforting thought she was eager to hear she hadn't been a damsel. Hard to believe, when it wasn't until talking to Hans and then Harper's potion deceptions she was able to fight back._

 **Olivier:** And you... _He sighs, hand dropping to his thigh as he admits._ I was able to aid you, but the roleplaying, the undercover work...

 **Eliza:** That isn't what I'm talking about. _She cuts him off._ You had an assortment in those dungeons older, people they'd chosen for reasons beyond bait and my pretty blonde hair and you chose to talk to us.

 **Olivier:** _At 'bait' he was enraged 'pretty blonde hair', murderous, though the offender was dead but by the time Eliza reached the small, pitiful word 'us' he simply mouths her name as soft as she spoke to start. Laying his hand on her foot near his knee, he squeezes her ankle and looks at the blue journal. All those words he'd made use of, all those plans she dutifully recorded. He hears Tony, 'and now we're invading a fifteen year old's privacy?' And smirks to himself. Of course that wouldn't have crossed his brother's mind: fifteen (fourteen) years old was much too young to be involved in any of this. He swallows tightly._ They took Tony. _He has to start there; Eliza has to understand that, know why he had acquiesced, why he had folded and let such terrible things happen while he regrouped. When he looks at her gaze he realizes suddenly...oh, she'd known that, but she doesn't move. His voice scratches. Fingers tracing her heel, he squeezes again._ They took him, into a cell like the one you were in over a year ago now.

 **Eliza:** _She reaches slowly to wrap her hand around his wrist on her ankle and squeezes as he does. The sudden hiss and ache in Olivier's voice startles her, but she refuses to look away._ **Olivier:** _Red-stretched eyes dart back to hers and hold firm as he continues._ I I had to protect him. And...I didn't just want to kill them, Eliza. _Nonchalant, but low._ I wanted to rip them apart.

 **Eliza:** I know. _Now she has to speak._ And...we did.

 **Olivier:** _A cruel twist to his lips mocks both smirk and smile, but softens as he looks back to the book._ I studied them. Who they had, what they did, what they wanted...it was almost...textbook.

 **Eliza:** _There's no escaping the laugh she offers at that. Devin would be proud._

 **Olivier:** I met Harper first. _First, he thinks with amusement, and then again a few times before he was Harper._ And it was long before I knew who he was - I mean, he was the most obvious weakness for Roswell, Eliza. Harper had never broken.

 **Eliza:** _She thinks for a second she wants to protest but she isn't sure if it's because she flinches hearing the last name or at the thought that physically, he had. And mentally...he did things against his morality for years. Like she has. Unsure, she still stays silent._

 **Olivier:** The things he could do...can, make...it was amazing. I had suspicions when I met him, but...his act as Angel, it was superb. It wasn't until Hans informed me he thought Angel believed he'd find his wife again I thought there was any...weight, to my suspicions. _He clears his throat. There was more he could tell here: Harper wouldn't trust him, he couldn't trust Harper. That he'd plainly meant initially simply to use their mutual loathing and skills to bring Roswell down. That he'd thought Harper would understand him, for the man hung on to wife and son and would prioritize the entire planet behind their lives. It was something, to put it mildly, they had in common; that one person you'd do anything for. He says none of this, because Eliza wasn't questioning Harper's involvement. She wanted to know why he helped her, and Nadia. So his nose wrinkles, and he continues._

The others, though? _He sighs, not wanting to think about them...about Penny. A hand scrubs at his throat and he sits in silence, face disrupted in distaste._ I knew Hans when we were children, Eliza I know...exactly, and maybe better than anyone...what it is they've done to him. So maybe...maybe there were others. Maybe others I could have turned. Some I did save, _there's a note of pride in his voice and he's gratified when he realized she smiles at that the first one to do so._ The rest...they were gone, Eliza, they were different people.

 **Eliza:** _Save. She knows what he means: some 'employees' like Jade that lived now. But as she thinks what she and Tony had returned to subject Jade too...she was relieved to think some of them weren't suffering for what hadn't been their choice._ Yes. _She says softly to the last, because they would be._ We are.

 **Olivier:** _Aha. Yes. They were. He lifts his gaze back to the book and says flatly,_ Nadia wasn't bait.

 **Eliza:** _The anger in his voice almost almost, surprises her. Or rather, Eliza thinks it surprises him, and he doesn't know how to feel about it, so she echoes the look of shock to let him empathize._

 **Olivier:** Nadia, _and he chuckles, remembering what she'd said when they met,_ was being described as the single-most important hostage to lure everyone to the Gala.

 **Eliza:** _A finger raises to her lips as she has to ask,_ ...how is that not bait?

 **Olivier:** That's how she was described to me. _He folds his arms over his chest, then lifts an open hand. His face was arranged in the incredulity of amusement._ It stared Roswell in the face she should have gone up and bit him. _Or he could have done that but - Harper had dibs. Seeing Eliza still looks the tiniest bit confused, his smirk breaks open as he explains._ The single-most important girl in England. The most incredible girl capable of inspiring loyalty in the entirety of the united kingdom. And they mean for her to be a pawn? No. Not in a million years, I think. There had to be something about her - something that was that...special. I had to know her. See for myself what made them bring...the most dangerous weapon into the headquarters they ever could have. A scared, lost, selfless child.

 _His face softens over his description with seriousness, recalling. Fingers dig and scrabble around his elbow now. A moment of silence please, he pleads and Eliza understands. Then he moves on, easily._ She couldn't know that was what I was doing of course - for she is fifteen, I wouldn't want to.. put too much on her if it wouldn't help either of us. And I saw what it was that made her so unique instantly, Eliza. Without her memories, without ever seeing the sun, Nadia continued to fight for the good in people. People she knew to be captives and torturers. The good in...

 _He trails off. Me, he mouths, but finds no voice to support it. He shakes his head slowly._ I met her because I wanted to show her kindness, and I wanted to find her measure. I wanted her to help me as much as I would help her. _His throat was dry as he mutters,_ Fifteen isn't so young as you think.

 **Eliza:** _She doesn't want to interrupt him now. Though she smirked as she realized what he was saying agrees wholeheartedly she let's him come to a pause, comfortably rest a moment and then finally speaks up._ So you helped her. Gave her the knife and pledged to aid her.

 **Olivier:** _His lips flick and he shakes his head slowly, very slowly._ I gave her the knife so she could defend herself. I gave her the journal so she would stop screaming aloud her plans as she did at me, and could record her information. I gave her a meal because I wanted her to help me, I wanted information. I saw her at the Gala ... and when I saw she got away, I told her where Devin was...so for the first time I could help her. _It was nonchalant._ And then I saw Lyndsea go down and...

 **Eliza:** _As he trails off she feels a sharp tug on her mind. Oh, she remembered that, she realized. She remembered...God, that could jot have only been two months ago. No. So she speaks quickly,_ You leaped in to save her, yes.

 **Olivier:** _Again his lips flick up, small._ That wasn't what I was going to say.

 **Eliza:** _Her eyebrow arches._

 **Olivier:** _Calmly,_ You snapped at me. Lyndsea didn't trust me-- why would she Nick immediately tried to say wait but even as you knew who I was, you let me take her from you. You let me -

 **Eliza:** Save her?

 **Olivier:** Push a potion down your surrogate mother's throat, when you had every reason to doubt me.

 **Eliza:** _Ah. She got it. Fighting for goodness. A leap of faith. Kindred spirits. She wants to squash Nadia in a hug right now._ ...you helped Devin. _She says sheepishly, by way of reason._

 **Olivier:** Yes. _A smoldering ruin lights in his stomach as he thinks he did that as much for Hans as for Devin._ But when Alcott tells me you were dead...I knew in an instant what they'd done and I snapped, Eliza. I would not...let it happen again, I couldn't. And more than that...you were the second teenage girl they were welcoming in...who...

 **Eliza:** _She realizes abruptly and has to laugh._ Who knew Al. Right? It-- _And then Olivier was laughing in sheepish laughter too. Neither of them hear the door unlocking._

 **Olivier:** _He nods too._ Oui, as well

 **Eliza:** I might recognize Harper. As I did.

 **Olivier:** You and Nadia were the two most dangerous they had ever taken...and I knew. It was a sign control was slipping. Dissent in the ranks. I wanted to know you both, Eliza, not save you. That...

 **Eliza:** Was our job. _She smirks, brightening up._ That, and so we could all rip them apart. And a damn fine job we did too.

 **Olivier:** Damn fine. _He echoes, but trails off as he sees Eliza's face change. Ah. Without spinning, his thumb taps on his wrist._ Claude, I presume?

 **Claude:** D'Grey. _While he'd only heard the last line - while he realizes the empowerment of saying they could save themselves - he couldn't help but think he'd have preferred Olivier or Tony take Eliza out the minute she arrives and wrapped her in a protective (soundproof) bubble. Soundproof because--_

 **Eliza:** Dad, don't. _She stands up now and folds her arms on her chest._ Please. We were just...

 **Olivier:** _Ah - yeah, that was her cue. Turning, he gets up and smirks (sue him, he couldn't help it) at Claude._ I was leaving Nadia's journal for her to return.

 **Eliza:** _Breathing out, she nods._

 **Claude:** Journal? _A brow arched as he looks at the book, then looks back. His hand curls over his grocery bag._ Then, thanks.

 **Olivier:** _Thanks, but please leave. Well. Not as if he didn't understand. Nodding, he just turned back to Eliza (his smile softens easily)._ Thanks for having me in too but - I do have a dinner to get to.

 **Claude:** _Whether or not that was true, he was grateful. Polite he could do but...look, was it so wrong he wanted his daughter out of this life?_ Great. Could you tell Tony he left his mug at my flat too?

 **Eliza:** _Immediately,_ Dad, that's a Lannister mug.

 **Claude:** A...what? _He was putting food in the cabinet and has to pause._

 **Eliza:** _Chuckling, she repeats the name and adds,_ A gift. I think it was supposed to be, anyways because of what they always say.

 **Olivier:** _He wonders briefly if he should warn Eliza what came next in the book series she was devouring - she appeared to be on Clash of Kings now. But...no, that was spoilers. So he turns - let's Eliza pull him in to a hug (mutters a small protest) - and then turns back to shake Claude's hand goodbye too. Thank Madonna he was Italian. So touchy, in this family! He pauses as he hears the question behind him. Oh, too good a setup._

 **Claude:** So what do they always say then?

 **Olivier:** _Hand on the knob, he answers with a small smirk, eyes fixed on Claude._ A Lannister always pays his debts. _Heat flashes, and then he was gone._


	5. Christoph

So, dying hurt. Go figure.   
  
Or maybe it was awareness that hurts. Whoever said you can't miss what you never had was a right moron who had never walked through Fashion Week in Milan without money for shoes, but you can't miss what you don't know you don't have. Nothingness, sleep of the undertaker-suited black kind, these things she knew flit away, but they don't go fast enough, she suddenly wants to run away from them as fast as she can even though whatever she's running towards is--hot, bright, burning, painful.  
  
Or maybe it was her throat that burns, and a flimsy little 35 watt bulb in a room otherwise dark. The darkness was thoughtful of someone, she thinks, gasping out, trying to capture breath harder and harder before she seems to remember abruptly; she doesn't need air.   
  
(That isn't what her throat is burning for.)   
  
Wincing away from the light and burying her eyes in the pillow beside her, she let's one hand flit up to her forehead trying to remember what the hell was going on. For some reason, all she seems to remember is playing at the piano bar during Fashion Week, but that can't be right. Oh, Maria would kill her if she was late again, but hey, Stef would let her live vicariously through her and Ansel if he ambushes her again in the dressi--wait a minute he had ambushed her, recently, when she was buying the purple gown-the one she's wearing now, she thinks.   
  
Why was she in a hotel room, again? Didn't she leave Roma? (She wanted to leave Roma, or maybe she never wanted to, it was all very confused in her mind right now. But she does remember being in Rome and in a hotel, so she asks, "Tony?"  
  
Oh, hell does her throat hurt.  
  
It varied person by person how long it took them to wake up as vampires. Marcus had witnessed the transformation taken as much as a day, but it hadn't taken Stefanie that long. Dawn was an hour away and all the windows were closed with light tight shutters. The only light in the room was to try and adjust Stefanie to it and because waking up in total darkness would have been even more disorienting even if her eyes would have thanked her, nothing else would have.  
  
The potion he had promised Stefanie was on the night stand, replaced by where she had kept the glass of wine, though it had slipped through her fingers and fallen against the floor as she died. As Stefanie came to with gasps, an instinct despite not needing to breathe, Marcus got up from the chair and stood at the foot of her bed.  
  
"No," he answered softly, holding back a chuckle at what she chose to be her first words as a vampire. A name had been his first word back from the dead as well.  
  
"Take your time, Stefanie, the memories are going to be rushing through very quickly, don't force them."   
  
No. Okay, so he wasn't Tony (the very fact he didn't make some weird joke solidifies that fact anyway), but she does know him. In fact? Despite the fact she's fairly sure as she opens her eyes (one eye, one slit, but she makes out his face perfectly), she's never seen the man before today in her life, she's pretty certain she knows him *well.*   
  
Her brows furrow at his words. Soothing, but placating, he sounds like he was trying to be her father. Or like he was her photographer, maybe that was it, maybe she was at a shoot. It would explain the finery of this room. Strange that could see so much of it from one cracked lid with only one light...but she can. There were white flowers, velvet and crystal. If someone had wanted to present the lap of luxury and plop her in it to curl like a cat, Stefanie was happy to oblige.   
  
(She's always liked cats. It was a little inside joke for her with how poorly she got on with Hans...)  
  
She grumbles under her breath (nonexistent), "I don't want to remember."   
  
Sure, it was petulant. She was a brat. Sue her. Her head hurt, her mouth is dry, her throat on fire--wait, fire. Maybe there was another reason she didn't want to remember. Besides, she's overwhelmed by what, after some trouble deciding, she resolves was more thirst than hunger.

His amusement finally takes hold as she comments petulantly that she doesn't want to remember. He smirks briefly, licking his lips and shaking his head. Of course she wouldn't want to remember. This was a Stefanie different than the one that had presented herself to him and a nightclub full of vampires only last night. She seemed almost like a child. But, it wasn't odd of him to think of her like one now. There were only a few things more laughable than him being a father and yet he seemed only to be adding more to his 'charge'.  
  
"I'm thirsty." Her lips mouth at the pillow beside her, wondering if Marcus would understand if she didn't bother putting voice to it. Oh! Marcus, that was his name, right. And she was Stefanie Ricard, as he prompted. Hell, how many shots *had* she had?

"Yes, that doesn't go away," he nodded at her simple statement, knowing the burn that was attacking her throat. After all, vampirism was supposed to be a curse and a damnation, if you believed the gospel that was. Everything had a price, theirs was the constant thirst.  
  
"But in time you will learn to control it, even satisfy it." Young vampires knew very little of gratification. For some it took years to learn, but he had a feeling that would not be Stefanie. That is, of course, if she had apt teachers. Given that Olivier was schooled both by Remington and Chantel at one time however, he had little worry.  
  
But she feels...better, she realizes, this doesn't feel like a hangover. Her eyes might be sensitive to light, but she was seeing perfectly; her head was clear, her breath...so even she's not sure how slow it is, nor why she woke gasping. Eyes fluttering again, she looks down at her dress, confusion clouding her expression. She couldn't feel her heart beat. That was...  
  
Nope, she couldn't even focus on that: too thirsty. But fire, fire was still prevalent (it hurt) in her mind and just as Marcus said it would, the rest came back all at once when she murmured the Targaryen motto to herself. It was a tease, her smirk triumphant and eyes widening as she understands.   
  
(Fire and *blood.*)  
  
Startling herself up to her elbows, she focuses on Marcus' eyes, licking her bottom lip as she makes herself focus.

"I'm transitioning," she answers herself aloud, still looking at him without blinking now. Nodding and tugging her fingers through her hair (she's not supposed to do that, she tied her hair in such knots they made her cut it when she was little and she looked like a boy for a year), she curls knees under her to sit straight up.   
  
"Is there...I need...to drink."  
  
He nods again at her correct inference, and then looks over his shoulder briefly as she begins to ask for blood.  
  
"There's a man who has volunteered outside. Now, I'm aware your stipulation was that you learn from the D'Greys," he looked back toward her and continued speaking, "and I've agreed, but I believe the first feed should be from the vein. However, if you're adamant on feeding first with them, I've acquired several blood bags." He didn't think they would be enough, personally. Even the man outside might not be enough, but it was still her decision. Free will was very important to Stefanie, and she had already spoken with some thinly veiled distaste over the 'obedience' portion of the bond they shared.   
  
"Volunteered?" Stefanie says first, although what she was thinking was 'yes.' That was it. Just yes. Yes to her stipulation, yes to the man, yes to the blood bags, yes to more. Free hand rubbing over her throat as her gaze darts around the room, itching for something although she's not sure anymore what.

"Yes, we are in Paris after all. You don't have to go two blocks without feeding to find someone willing," or alone. But for the first feeding of a woman determined to hold on to her morals as he suspected, someone willing was the best recourse.

The music was off. That's irritating her, the scratch of the needle as it wavers over the record worse than a  chalkboard meeting nails. The traffic outside is relentless even in what she imagines are wee hours, for surely one damn cab can't make that much noise. She's sure she can hear housekeeping cleaning a mirror somewhere on the floor, but the man outside...she's still for a moment, listening to all of him, the strange, steady beat of ...well, it must be his heart.  
  
"You got a volunteer in..." And then she realizes, "...how long has it been? How long was I...um," she smiles slight at the absurdity of it, "out for?"

"Three hours," he answered after a chuckle at her wording and then further explained, "plus this hotel is equipped for vampire guests. He's getting paid a healthy sum for it, more given that you're newborn." Marcus smiles, realizing how odd this might sound but, well, it was Paris.  
  
"Remington's influence since the 1900s has made Paris a very vampire friendly city, if you will. Vampires keep off the streets, avoid unnecessary killing to keep the crime rate low, and in turn the city is quite accommodating. Of course, that's suffered in recent years, but nevertheless, the Shangri La hotel is the epitome of hospitality." Personally, Marcus still preferred to hunt but there was a surprising amount of vampires determined to be quote-unquote cultured. Mannered. Civilized. To each their own, really.  
  
And some of these human 'donors' (that word always made Marcus smirk) were on very strict diet regimens for those particular vampires. Though you really did not notice the difference in taste between people until after you stopped scarfing down the blood of anyone the wind blew in your direction.

The corner of her eye catches a dark liquid in the crystal beside her on the bed, and grabs for it. One sip is enough let her know it isn't what she wanted. Almost smashing it for the crime of not being blood, she's stalled as she winces, hand coming to her eyes to cover the light and remembers what the liquid probably was. Aw. The sunlight potion, all ready for her? That was sweet.   
  
Finishing it and setting the glass back, her other hand has gotten knotted in the base of her hair. She looks back to Marcus as she tugs free, scratches at her throat again. (Where was her cross?! ...Ah, right. She must have put that in her clutch, it would be with her coat...) But the thought of her mother's cross was calming enough to ask again.

"...If I...if I drank from him, you wouldn't let me kill him, right?"  
  
"No, I wouldn't." Though that wouldn't have been true a century and a half ago. And he certainly wouldn't dwell on it if she did, the man was insured too.   
  
"Though the idea is for you to stop yourself, pulling you away the defeats the purpose but given that it's one feed to hold you until you get to the D'Grey's, I'll tear you away from him." It would be necessary, especially as the look in her eyes made it clear her entire focus was on his heartbeat.   
  
"Wait but--he's getting pai--" Stefanie blinks, mouth opening wide, which apparently was a mistake. Though she nods along to the rest of what Marcus was saying, and she vaguely thinks she's listening along decently, that heart beat was getting louder and her mouth? The hell, was happening, to her...  
  
Oooh right, right, fangs. Her hand claps over it as she shoves her teeth together. Well, that explains the aching gums, the stabbing pain above her throat. It was enough hurt that Stef forgot for a moment she was unbearably thirsty.   
  
Jerking her gaze from Marcus to the bathroom door, which was pushed open an inch, she feels like leaving in the middle of his history lesson would be rude. Stefanie is sure is Very Important and she's going to want to hear more soon, really, because it really was very riveting and fascinating to understand the underworld that her very own friendly Neighborhood D'Grey has set up for her. Er, not for her. For his Dad and Marcus and a bunch of other people she expects but right now, for her.   
  
"Who's _paying_?" She has to ask, even rubbing over her gum like she was a little kid pretending she has a mustache.

"I am," he answered calmly noting how frenzied and wild-eyed she was. Perfectly understandable and expected really. The transition was such a grueling process. It would have been easier to wake up in an entirely different world, which actually was quite an accurate description of it. Not to mention to wake up in a body completely unknown to you. The pain of the fangs coming out, that would hurt every time but you learned to ignore it. The thirst was ever-present as well and the new abilities took some getting used to.

Stefanie almost giggles to add, "You sound like I should charge him extra for my virginity. Only you're saying tip him. Seriously, D'Grey runs all that? I--," she let's out a low whistle and adds, "Tony must not know."  
  
But then again, he must, because that was why he wanted it shut down, and she really shouldn't be thinking about him right now. Even though she's now officially concerned for the state of Paris. And, you know, thankful. If they were willing, and she wasn't going to kill them, then why shouldn't she?   
  
(This is what courtesans evolved into, isn't it? Professional blood bags? Ha.)

"Well there's more risk with a newborn," he noted amused with her joke but nevertheless as calm as before. He found it best given that the whole world was in an uproar around her. Being the only quiet, steady aspect of the environment right now would only help.  
  
Her gaze goes back to Marcus, then back to the handle, and when she realizes that she's two seconds from tearing up trying to keep these canine teeth back -- she bolts from the bed.   
  
And...nearly smacks the mirror. Right. Vamp-speed upgrade. Okay, duly noted. Fingers spreading gingerly to inspect the fangs peeking down through pink flesh, she's relieved they don't hurt anymore. Mesmerized by the sharp clarity in the mirror of a face contorting, shifting, veins appearing around her eyes to map pink porcelain skin in blue-purple and red pupils, she huffs in surprise. Huh. That was...well, interesting.   
  
Without the fangs hurting, thirst reigns supreme in an instant, and so she doesn't bother trying to put them away yet. She does, however, immediately try the vampire-speed again to find her clutch. It was strange; it was easier to move quicker than it was to stop, to catch herself.   
  
Digging in the handbag, she doesn't speak again to Marcus until she has the necklace on. Her fingertip caresses the cross as she speaks. It just...doesn't feel right without it.

He maps her progress in and out of the bathroom, turning his head and then completely on his heels as she returns to try and find her coat. Once she had was she was looking for, Marcus finds himself smiling at the irony. A cross. Well, she certainly wasn't the only vampire with religion. Remington himself attended church regularly for the first few decades of his life, and there was a small chapel at D'Grey manor. Or there was, at least. He hadn't been there in a quarter of a century, and he didn't think he'd be invited over anytime soon.  
  
"I...appreciate it," she says quietly, "I'm...I'm trying to remember," her hand closes in a fist on her forehead, pressing hard, goddammit can't that heart just shut up for two seconds and stop being so enticing, "I know, I know this was really important to me, not hurting him, or, or anyone, so--yes, I...rip me off if you need to. This," she palms at her throat, rubbing the corner of her eyes, "this is going to calm down once I've fed, right?"  
  
She's rocking in place. It prevents her from diving for the door. Stefanie Ricard was a lady, see, and she wasn't going to resort to lunging for food. This dress was half her paycheck, seven hells.   
  
"To a point, for a time," Marcus answered truthfully, empathetic to the struggle. The reality was she couldn't drain him completely and be better sated, but he supposed he could give her some blood bags 'to-go'. Marcus held back a smirk and laughter at that thought as well.

Stefanie clears her throat, lifts her chin and says first to Marcus, "I'll pay you back every cent." It wasn't just that she wants to insure she doesn't remain in his debt. She just doesn't think he should be stuck paying for her -- and...and she was inexplicably touched he'd thought of her despite stipulating she'd ask the D'Grey's.

(Besides, this meant she wasn't going to have to tell Ton--tell them, right away. Stefanie doesn't remember why she thought she should go there in the first place.)

"Of course," he accepted her promise to pay him back gracefully, knowing it was more matter of principle than money. A few hundred years on earth and you could find yourself accumulating a massive amount of wealth. It didn't really matter to him but most things seldom did anymore.  
  
"Try not to move, and I'll go get him," he nods and then walked out of the room, closing the door for the brief moment he would be outside. The new intensity of the smell would serve almost a warning, or rather a tease of what was to come.  
  
With a nod of his head, the donor stood from the chair and took off his shirt, not wanting to stain it Marcus imagined. Having already instructed him to stay behind Marcus, Marcus led the way inside and first gauged Stefanie.  
  
Nodding with clear determination, Stefanie doesn't move. Or breathe. Or blink. It was fascinating her how much easier that was--remaining statuesque when the door opens and she gets a sudden, clear understanding of what the scent truly was.   
  
"Oh holy hell," she mutters, still not breathing and trying to use the words to force the rest of the air out of her lungs. There was no better description, she realized with some amusement at her side note. The air might as well be singing to her: she can smell cinnamon leaves, vanilla extract, fresh baked bread. With a twitch of her thumb, she wrinkles her nose up, buries her hands behind her back and can't resist taking another whiff. It was quick. Or, er, she meant it to be, but might have wound up inhaling deeply and luxuriating in it, like she plunged off the high dive to the pool's deep end and sank. Heavens, she even she thinks there's a light, lilting trace of her mother's petunias. How in the world could the donor have those?  
  
Oh, listen to her. 'The donor,' well, wasn't she being rude to this man who had decided he'd open his vein to her. Her fingers twitch around her necklace. And yes, she'd seen her maker's amusement with it (at this moment she thinks she could see all the way to China if someone would turn off the sun for her)--but screw him. (Actually, that would be fun, she remembers his shirt off when she fed from him abruptly with new clarity and goddamn, all right?)   
  
Except not _Goddamn_ , she tells herself as she indents her palm with the cross. As Marcus came back into the room first, she looks over his shoulder, wishing he was less tall at the same time as she was grateful for the sudden barrier. That scent getting closer...

He hadn't been sure at first whether to call for a man or a woman. Newborns had no preference yet, but they tended to gravitate in taste the same way they did sexual orientation. Those lines would soon cease to exist as well. So he made a decision on which gender she would less likely kill.  
  
Obviously, she was of the opinion that every life mattered, he could see that plainly already and hear it confirmed as she asked the man's name, but he really had to think about instinct and all those feelings they'd shared. Obviously, there was a lot of anger directed to several men in her life, but the anger was very tightly connected to loss. She had recently lost her brother to death, and another had fled. Not to mention, she chose another pair of brothers to teach her how to feed and be a vampire.  
  
She had apologized to her mother aloud last night when she had entered the club, and Marcus had a feeling, which he knew was correct, that the cross she clung to also belonged to her mother. Women were also more likely to be sympathetic to other women, but only barely. So he had to remember that her most recent experience with a woman had been Gina. And given that women who worked as professional donors tended to be aggressive, tough, and aloof (though they acted in whichever way the client preferred then to), Marcus thought it would be best to ask for a man.  
  
So much thought for one simple choice of what would better suit someone other than him. Marcus had forgotten what it was like to bloodshare and sire. Satisfied (for now) with how composed she held herself, Marcus took one step aside to reveal the man and didn't miss the hunger in her eyes grow. 

Without moving an inch, warily clutching her nails into her palm as she looks at the man (and surveys his bare chest a few times, hot damn, was he a swimmer?) "What's your name?"  
  
Yes, dammit, she was going to introduce herself. He wasn't a walking vein for her pleasure, he was a living breathing person and so what if he smells this good her mouth was already watering at the thought of his taste? It still matters.   
  
"I'm Stef." She smiles briefly, thinking the best approach generally was the most straightforward one.   
  
"Christoph, mademoiselle," the bare chested man inclined his head and smiled himself, as at ease as a human could be in a room with two vampires (but he was a professional after all), " _enchanté_."  
  
Marcus looked at Stefanie again and then suggested, "walk towards him at human speed, it'll help you with the restraint."   
  
"Right," she says softly, lips twitching up. Really there was only one little problem with that. Honestly, just one! And it was little, she just...couldn't you know, remember how to move at what he called "human pace." Stefanie had never exactly been fast (she almost giggles, remembering she'd told Marcus she was never quick). Now she seems to take one step and, well, woosh!  
  
"Enchanté, Christoph," she responds softly, "and grazie, for this." Stef was surprised she could hear him over how loud his heart was. Christ, Christoph. (Aha! Er, pun only a little intended).

"It is my pleasure, Stef," Christoph responded with an assuring smile. Marcus would have to remember to tip the man a little extra, he was handling this extremely well without any need to glamour him. His heartbeat remained steady, if a bit elevated, but he knew it really wouldn't matter to Stef. His heart could be unnaturally slow and she would still find it deafening. Marcus was surprised she even acknowledged his words.

Well, she was going to try anyway. Because otherwise she realizes she's very likely just to jump him right now.   
  
"Could you, uhm," she looks at the chair nearest to them and gestures with her neck. "Sit down?"   
  
Okay, so, something to remember: taking a deep breath no longer steadies her. It just serves as a deep inhale of temptation. She realizes this when she's already by him and the chair. So much for approaching at a human pace. 

Acknowledge, yes, but as she was next to Christoph the moment he had sat down causing a spike in the man's heart, human speed was something she would have to work towards.

Her hands on Christoph's shoulders; she stands between his knees and looks utterly captivated on his neck before she asks, more from anxiety and nerves than any control, "Do you -- have a preferred place I bite?"   
  
Marcus stepped to the side and turned to have them in his sights once more and stood absolutely still as he watched.  
  
"Wherever you wish," Christoph assured, but Marcus cut in to add.  
  
"The neck will be the more instinctive for you, Stefanie, your body knows what to do." Plus, bites anywhere else cost extra. Marcus' particular favorite was the femoral artery but that was a more advanced technique.  
  
"Grab the chair, not his shoulders," he also suggested after another look at her hands, "you'll squeeze too hard."   
  
Leaning forward instinctively on one knee braced against the chair, she barely hears Marcus past the words "the neck." Hellooooo, he'd already answered. He being Christoph, the one who actually had say here, except yes okay she does remember her sire was trying to help her. She has a feeling she only remembers that because this onslaught left her really with about five minutes of memories, total. Maybe six. But if it was six, a good quarter of them was Christoph's scent and the pulse that she likens mentally to a drumbeat calling her forward.   
  
Nose gracing the neck, she pauses only a half second, grumbling, then takes her hands off his shoulders. Her fingers stay in the air when she bites down. They might wiggle, teasing. (Maybe.) _Look, ma, no hands!_

Newborns, Marcus thought as he held back an exasperated sigh. Glad nevertheless that she took his advice, even if she only complied for a moment and in the next she was taking his hand, he observed her technique and monitored Christoph's vitals.  
  
...Oh, except she wants hands. She takes one of Christoph's instead, compromising, the other squeezing suddenly bone-white knuckled into the plush chair. The warmth pouring into her mouth was necter rife to seduce. This was blood? Had it always tasted this good? Why in the world would anyone consume anything else?  
  
(Stefanie is _consuming_.)

Marcus stands to the side, observing. Swift entry, pretty clean but a little too deep, though that was common with newborns. Because it was so, Christoph took a little longer than usual to move away from the pain though he also enjoyed that as well. All donors did to a degree but he made sure to ask for a particularly masochistic one. Christoph enjoyed it, his arousal obvious even without the moan.

Lacing fingers through the man's and clinging to his sweat almost in fascination of the heat turned liquid (like his life force turned to blood, turned to gift for her), she sighs into the crevice of his neck. Pleasure seeps through her bones, soothing the ache in her gums, in her throat, fanning fire in her chest. Blood was a panacea of richness, she realized, no wonder people sold this. No wonder the D'Grey's had millions. Stefanie couldn't think of a price too high to pay for this.  
  
(Certainly not life. Hadn't she already paid her own? She could get a freebie for that, right? Life for a life and what not?)   
  
Licking the edges of her bite like a kitten cleaning the bowl, she bites again, this time on the other side. The best art was symmetrical in her mind. Sucking deeper, she places their joined hand on her waist, trying to pull him even closer.  
  
Finding it curious as Stef moved away by her volition to lick around the wounds as he had done to her last night, he found himself smirking as she moved to the other side of her neck and began to feed from him there. Peculiar, he thought, wondering why she had done so. Christoph now leaned his neck the other way to give her more access, his human fingers intertwined with Stefanie's as they sunk into her waist. Obliging and raising himself off the chair to be closer, his other hand slid up Stefanie's back to tangle in her hair.  
  
His heart was still steady, breathing even. Good, Marcus thought as he nodded to himself. She could drink more without causing damage, so Marcus remained silent.  
  
Relief flooding her throat as she's clutched closer, she frees her hand from the chair and brings it down to cup the back of his neck. Her thumb braces itself beneath the two holes she made on the other side, brushing back and forth. She wants to smirk hearing the loud, reverberating moan in her ears. Steady thrum of his heart making better music than Mozart (blasphemy, but probably no worse than her gold cross narrowly avoiding blood trails dribbling down). She licks again to chase after the taste, growling at the thought of anything getting away from her. Her head bobs, nose bumping his hair line as she tries to deepen the bite.   
  
She could taste that Christoph was enjoying this, she realizes, sucking as she presses her hips deeper into him. What started as joy and relief was turning rapidly to rapture, ravenous and unrelenting. The idea that he was pulling her in, wants to give her more, more, more--well, that was intoxicating as his taste was. The stain on her lips could pass for wine, couldn't it?  
  
Squeezing the back of his neck as too soon she realizes the rush is beginning to falter in her mouth. The steady purple rivers turn to rivelets deep burgundy and scarlet. Hand lifting him with ease off the chair completely to slip her leg around him, her ankle clutches him to her like a vice. She still didn't have enough, and her frustration with it taking so long seeps through her, making her bite again in the same place, trying to make it wider. Mine, she was claiming with her tongue and teeth, no longer cognizant of his breath or heart.  
  
Ah, there it was, the desperation. It was inevitable, especially with how receptive Christoph was to his treatment, but it wasn't entirely a bad thing. Well, it would ultimately be the worst thing for the man if Marcus weren't here to stop it, but as that wasn't the case, there was very little to worry about.  
  
The desperation grew as the blood began to flow less freely, and Stefanie tried to bite deeper than before, threatening to leave a bite mark much bigger than the two puncture wounds. Christoph's cry that time was of pain, but Stefanie didn't identify it. She was caught up in her own drinking.  
  
"Careful."

The hand she has on the neck waves a first warning off, like a child asking 'five more minutes daddy' before going back to sleep. Or in this case, she went back to drinking blood.

Marcus had first fed from a human and bled him dry. Then he had drank another one. Lars rarely denied him anything. So desperate he was for companionship that he didn't do anything that might cause Marcus to be upset with him for half a century. Marcus, however, didn't care for that, mostly because he knew this was the perfect definition of 'you'll-thank-me-later'.

Once his heartbeat was too quiet, once Christoph's grip loosened and his eyes began drooping, Marcus moves forward and with one hand around Stefanie's elbow peels her away.  
  
"Easy, easy now," he warned, moving in between her and Christoph again.

Eeriely reminded of Hans gestures at her before he went for one more glass, she's just thinking that Marcus wasn't allowed to break Christoph's neck like she'd done to Hans whiskey glasses when he seizes her elbow.  
  
"Ai-no-," she splutters in red and spittle, the hand that had been clutching Christoph (she doesn't know when he slipped free) curling into a fist and beat ineffectually against the man's shoulder where he's holding her. Her foot stamps as he pushes her back. Not what she meant by punching him to let her go!

Normally, the sure way to have another vampire back down, one significantly younger than you at least, was to bare fangs but given her distaste of hierarchy, he employed another method.

"You're killing him."

Wild-eyes spinning between the men, it's the word "kill" that gives her pause.   
  
Was she? But how? His heartbeat was still--er--okay, sure it was a little bit slow, but it was still so loud, she doesn't understand. And she was still so damn hungry, it was really hard to care.  
  
Christoph was gasping for breath, wasn't he? Oops.

Her trying to punch and push him off was one pout away from being labeled 'cute'. Marcus watched her process the information slowly, realizing she really couldn't tell the difference but then, Marcus has seen many people died. It happened quicker than most believed, much like Stefanie's death. One second they were there, heart beating, lungs working, and then the other everything stopped and they were gone. Just as quick as that, that's how death happened.  
  
Stefanie spins, moving fast again, back towards the bed in the other room. When that wasn't far enough to quell the urge to pounce, she moves to the window instead, opens it and walks on to the balcony, rubbing hard at her own throat. Sure, *now* she moves at human speed. She was pretty sure Christoph could crawl and still catch her.

Marcus also knew that between the man's life and her thirst, it was really challenging to remember the first was supposed to be the most important. Marcus thought otherwise usually, but he did pay for the man, he was liable now if he died. That could get messy in litigation.

Tongue acting like a sponge to her chin as she soaks the blood there, her index finger runs over her lips until it's licked clean. Then she shuts her eyes, hair captive to the wind as she realizes the dark sky was turning pink. Haha. Oh, goody, like she doesn't have enough metaphors in her life already. Or...her death, or whatever. Noticing she's still sucking her thumb to get the most of his blood as she could, she pops it out and rolls her eyes to herself. Get a grip, sweetie. (That was in her best River Song voice).  
  
Feeling a little (a lot) better, she smiles, utterly relieved that she hadn't killed him even if Marcus did intervene. So she spins back, speaking to him without moving, knowing he could hear her just damn fine.

She moved away, slower than before given that her instinct right now was to stay, rip, and feed until she was sated. With a look back to the man as he moved to stand on shaky legs, Marcus brought his bag over to him with a snap of his fingers because otherwise he might have stumbled. He sat back down, grateful, and he wasn't the only one.  
  
"Danke, schatzi." The corner of her lips twitch up as she gasps out. "Can I still have the blood bags? And...I uhm," she looks at Christoph, feeling strange as she looks at him stirring, "I want to help him clean up but I don't think I...should, yet, can you...?"   
  
Seriously though, she was getting his contact information, because he tastes really good and she won't bite anyone who isn't willing. And besides, then when she was better in control she could thank him properly (hey, she heard that moan of arousal, all right?). She just wants to let him know...how much she honestly appreciates it.   
  
"And thanks, Christoph," she says louder, biting her index finger between normal teeth, nail blue as her eyes were again. "For accepting my vamp virginity, and what not."  
  
"You're welcome," he accepted vocally, nodding as she asked whether she could still have the blood bags and with another snap they were on her bed, inside a portable cooler most people used for the beach. Then with a simple nod, though Christoph was doing well cleaning up on his own, he agreed to help him. He was a professional after all.   
  
Christoph grinned and chuckled weakly, "No, thank you, mademoiselle. It was my pleasure. Call again, non?" He winked and then began to place some bandages. Marcus stopped him, stilling his hand before bringing a finger to his mouth and piercing the tip of it with his fang. He rubbed his blood over each hole and watched it close, leaving only red and tender skin in its wake.  
  
"Merci, monsieur."  
  
As inconspicuous as the hotel could be, it was almost morning and he couldn't chance anyone seeing the wounds or ask him why he wore bandages under his scarf. Marcus then walked with the man out of the room to take away the temptation from Stefanie, closing the door behind him again.    
  
"Oui," she answers with a tiny smirk. Was it ridiculous to think he might have read her mind? His blood was sustaining her now; why shouldn't there be a residual connection as long as that was true?  
  
Marcus clearly was, as with a snap a cooler appears beside her. That...puts everything else out of her mind as she sees the bags. Ripping one out and tearing into it with a nail, she nearly chokes and coughs it right back up onto the balcony. Well, spits. Oh, she could taste some residual life to it (the after taste wasn't horrible, anyway)--but...but, blegh, couldn't she put it in a microwave or something first?   
  
Harumph.

The expression on Stefanie's face as she tasted the blood from the bag perfectly mirrored how he felt about them in general: disgusted. However, they did the work in a pinch. Leaving the room to ensure Christoph was on his way without any problems, Marcus did as he reminded himself to do and included extra gratuity for keeping his calm and helping Stefanie feel more comfortable about the process (in the beginning, for all doubts tended to wash away after the first taste).

She sits cross-legged, Indian style despite the short gown, resigning herself to finishing it just because she was too hungry not to. It was gone too fast, even as she tries to slow down, tries to savor the taste, thinking she should have done this the other way. She would much rather have the taste of Christoph left in her mouth. Stef snatches up another bag. Her gaze was on the sun, squinty-eyed as she watches over the rise Seine. Damn. It hasn't risen yet, and she reaches to itch her skin, scratching the forearm that wasn't clutching the bag. That was gone too fast too. She snatches another. Her nail itches behind her ear. Then she picks up another bag. She was certain she's just felt her heart beat once, thinks she wouldn't have even noticed if it wasn't suddenly strange to feel.   
  
But, makes sense it beat when she had blood back in her system. Was her skin warmer too? Or...well, yes it was, but she figures that must be the sun. Finishing a fourth bag like a juice box now instead of bothering to rip the sad replacement for a fresh (willing!) vein open, she turns when she hears the door open again. A softer smile is on her face as she looks at Marcus.   
  
"I feel...incredible. I do, I just--I feel like I could take flight off this balcony and -- hell, even if I fell I'd be just fine! I'd heal, right? And what I can...*hear* and *see*...this is *insane...*"

Returning once the man had been off, and after Christoph had given him his card to pass along to Stef, Marcus is faced with a Stefanie that was feeling better. She was smiling, wondrous about how she felt, what she could see and hear and Marcus found himself smiling as well. No, she couldn't fly, but she could...what was the saying of that one superhero? Leap over tall buildings in a single bound? And she'd fall on her feet, not break anything. It was magnificent, unlike anything else, if you paid attention to it and didn't concentrate on your human life. He would have liked to have known that 300 years ago.  
  
She tosses the fifth bag back in, unfinished (she needed to conserve, she thinks, it'd be easier to get to the D'Grey's later with recent sustenance). Popping up, with a single step she's back in front of Marcus, going on her toes and laying both hands on his chest.   
   
"Danke," she whispers. Why not? She knew he could hear it.  
  
Back to her regular speed, Stefanie jumped up and stood in front of him, Marcus smirking briefly before his expression lightened as she thanked him again, and he knew it was all-encompassing. Pressing one, chaste kiss to his lips, she pulls back to rub her nose back and forth against his like a kitten giving an Eskimo kiss to it's father, before leaning back to giggle.  He nodded once, their lips meeting briefly before she nuzzled him with her nose causing him to chuckle.  
  
"Aren't you cute?"

Cute? She was about to echo him indignantly, but finds herself giggling again, face breaking into an all out smile with eyes sky blue. So she just nods sheepishly, hair falling free and licking her stained lip. Truth was she has all day to figure out -- well packing, first, and then the D'Grey's, but she wants to spend some time just...playing. For the first time (in days, weeks, but it felt like *ever*, everything felt new), she felt like she could do anything. The world was awash in possibility and color and she was definitely not talking just about the rising sun.

He chuckled again and then reached for both her hands, holding them at her sides and taking a step forward for the step she took back.

Though, yes it felt blindingly warm again, as it had two days ago on the Roman balcony and she would be happy to just stand there basking in it's glow a few minutes. At least until Marcus took her hands and stepped back after her.   
  
Nose wrinkling as she darts her gaze down and a frown appearing, she stalls another indignant groan when she realizes the assurance she felt when he held her. This time he wasn't pulling her away; he just was comforting her. Smile back in a flash (she was getting dizzy with the swings of emotion), she nods.  
  
"You'll do splendidly, Stefanie," he expressed truthfully, "And if there's ever anything you need, you'll know where to find me." Marcus spoke of their connection. It was instinctual.  
  
But either way, they would see each other soon. Marcus had not forgotten her end of the bargain after all, but that could wait some time. He had enough information to start poking around, and she had a transitioning to go through. 

"I'll call," she says and means it for once (unusual for her, but then she had...everything new now). Instinct might tell her where to find him, but she still thinks mobile phones are probably faster. "I mean, I assume you put your number in my phone?"   
  
It was in her clutch...somewhere. Zipping back to fetch it and her sweater, she takes the rest of the blood bags too, shrinking them to fit in her purse. It was strange to feel the way her eyes changed, but at least it reminds her she likely has to wash her face of the blood before she left.

Marcus smirked again before realizing belatedly it was with something akin to pride, and nodded at her correct insinuation. His number was indeed stored in her mobile for her to contact him easily. Similarly, his mobile had her number as well for whenever he needed to get directly in touch. Though, time apart would do well, more for him than her.  
  
The word 'splendid' was still on her mind. If she could have, Stefanie was sure she almost blushed.

"Oh yes," he took his hands back and pulled Christoph's card out of his pocket, stretching it out to her with two fingers and commenting with a smirk, "it seems you already have an admirer. One of many, I'm sure."   
  
Back in front of Marcus, she took the pro offered card, now she chuckles, sliding that back into her clutch too.

"He's a bit of a masochist, isn't he?" Her voice was bright, pleasantly so.

"I suspect so," Marcus answered after a chuckle, as if he didn't know masochist was his identifier of choice. Marcus was sure that the man would have died happily and gladly by Stefanie's hand. Facts like that ceased being strange to Marcus some time ago.

Meeting Marcus' gaze, her eyes soften and she admits, "I actually have lacked fortune in that area."  
  
But she doesn't see why he shouldn't know that, and she feels good, really good, so she brightens up as she summarizes. "Let's see. There was Kyle, ex fiancee, he cheated on me with my bridesmaid...I mentioned the second in command I helped replace my brother? Yeah, yeah there was that...at least until I learned he murdered his previous girlfriend. Oh, oh," Stef exclaims holding a hand up as if afraid he'll misunderstand, "he didn't mean to. Werewolf problem. Tragic. Anyway, who else...well, don't date your photographer; that is just," she flattens her hand out to hit the air with, "asking to have secret naked photos of you taken and then released. And oh of course, then, Antonio. Who just committed the negligible offense of not sending me a text message."  
  
She blinks, teeth digging into her bottom lip.  
  
"You know," she shrugs, slipping the cardigan back on, eyes shifting an instant, "when you're helping guard my kidnapped baby brother as he's tortured for information. Oh, and stood there watching him die while holding me back from interfering, but other than that! No problem!" She slaps at her thigh.   
  
"So hey, what do you know," she fluffs her hair out behind the sweater now, "Masochism turns out a necessary characteristic to being in my after life. Though between you and me, Marcus? The D'Grey's have that well-covered."  
  
And yet for all he's seen in life, Stefanie's love life still had him listening with arched eyebrows and mild incredulity. Past the point of sounding like a soap opera, the situation was more resembling of a horror story, which now worked even better when Stefanie was a vampire.  
  
He whistled, like she had done with the information he had given about his age, and then shook his head. That wasn't bad luck. That kind of bad luck is only consistent with curses, frankly that was just some bad decision making but who was he to judge?  
  
"Then you should be in good hands," he answered in a mild joke. Marcus was inclined to believe her judgment about the brothers and was growing curiouser to see how this would end up.  
  
"Though do try not to wear them out."  
  
Pausing near the door at the last addition Marcus, Stefanie finds herself deciding she just has to laugh. Because to honestly appraise her emotions for Tony right now--she felt would do nothing but promptly wind up with her burying fangs in another person's neck.   
  
So she nods, lays a finger upon her lips, winking and saying with a tiny whisper,

"I won't. But shhh, don't tell them that."


	6. Girl Scout*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Not really.

For the briefest moment, Stefanie wonders how obvious it is that she's hiding in the shade from a sun barely in the sky. Then she decides it doesn't matter, because the moment that door opened she was barelling through it with her two bags, and her focus really has to be on keeping herself at a human pace. It was ridiculous, how difficult it was. Why do people move so _slowly_? No wonder they couldn't get anything done.   
  
The blood bags were mostly gone; she has one buried in her bag, but she doesn't really *want* to touch it. It seems in poor taste, considering....well, considering there was another girl's taste still on the tip of her tongue. She couldn't waste that. It was inconsiderate of her...memory, wow, no, she couldn't think about that yet, tears were building up behind her eyes fast and rapid.   
  
(She wasn't going to be blubbering  when she sees Tony. There was a reason she redid her make-up.)  
  
"My brother," she proclaims the instant the door is opened (way too goddamn slowly), walking through in a bustle and...right by Tony, eyes on Olivier in the living room.   
  
"Left me here. He just, left."  
  
She huffs, and puts her bags at her feet, only tossing her hair back over her shoulder to let herself look at Tony.   
  
(As if she could hear anything he said over how fast his heart was beating anyway.)  
  
Well whoever was at the door was rude. Didn't they respect his need for privacy while he wallowed in American bourbon and watched re-runs of some French show that he had been too lazy to switch the channel for and now he was completely hooked? The door knocked again and he had to groan and sigh as he got up, glaring at Olivier as Tony passed him.  
  
"You could deign to open your own door, you know," he grumbled, wondering briefly where any of the well-paid servants in this house had gone off to. Tony didn't want to be rude, but it was their job. He was supposed to be sinking into a sofa and ignoring all of Irene's texts (there were many, and she had reached the creative-insults level), not getting up.  
  
Although, if someone was selling Girl Scout cookies, he would make the biggest order that organization had ever seen. What were the ones with coconut and caramel again? He liked those.  
  
All thoughts of cookies left his mind as his heart stopped for a moment only to kickstart right back up again as he saw Stefanie. His mouth opened but before he could get anything out, she was brushing past him. Tony instinctively moved his shoulder so she wouldn't hurt herself, and started frowning, looking out the open door for a few moments.  
  
What...the fuck?  
  
He might have to tell Stefanie the meaning of 'never want to see you again'. He winced, thankful that he was still turned the other way and contemplated going right back out the door before he closed it instead. Swallowing, he turned, only just now noticing the bags she had brought. His eyebrows skyrocketed.  
  
 _What the fuck?_  
  
Olivier was exchanging a lot more than a few eyebrow wiggles with his brother now. Their heartbeats were almost in sync with each other. It's impressive! Stefanie wonders if they know that. If it was part of their D'Grey Brother Telepathy or something, whatever they have going on.  
  
One glance at the confused, wounded puppy look on Tony's face and she's tearing her eyes away to stop herself from leaping across the room before any of them blinked. Olivier looks bewildered; that she can handle.   
  
"I'm sorry, your tone implies I'm actually supposed to care?" Olivier's dead pan snark never failed to irritate her before. Now, she's not sure why she seems grateful for it. She rolls her eyes, huffs, "Rude," then realizes she's looking at Tony again.  
  
(When did that happen?)  
  
Pointing at her bags, Olivier blinks as he asks aloud, meaning it as a joke, "You thinking of moving in?"  
  
"Yes." She answers, perfectly straightforward as she does, looking back at Olivier.  
  
Tony's eyes narrowed into a glare at his brother for his rudeness. He didn't even care that it was something he would have normally said before, it wasn't before! The least he could be is a little tactful and yes, he recognized the irony here alright!  
  
However, it was a good thing Tony hadn't decided to kill Ansel yesterday after all. That might have been awkward. It might have also made her turn around and leave again, which, he half wanted. The other half of him wanted to throw his arms around her shoulders but instead he stood absolutely still.  
  
His eyebrows rose even further hearing Stefanie. She was moving in? Er...why? His mouth opened again but not even the monosyllable word came out of it. So he looked at Olivier to voice his thoughts.  
  
"You're not staying here," Olivier said in a laugh half joking voice as he tried to take it that way. Even though he could see and hear by how...steady, Stefanie was, she was perfectly serious.   
  
"Doubly rude."  
  
Tony went from glaring at him to eyebrow-arching-and-mouthing "why?", but he couldn't answer that for him. Only Stefanie could, and she was apparently hung up on calling them rude. (Was she trying to demonstrate their hypocrisy, or something?)  
  
"Stef," he starts after nodding at his brother, "even if Hans left, you have a flat--"  
  
She folds her arms on his chest and Olivier is beginning to wonder why he got off the couch.   
  
"Oui, I do," she says simply, "with my brother's suitcase and his stuff in my laundry. Guess you missed that, when you were shipping him home to Austria without notifying me."

Ouch. Tony winced again, even as he heard again that Marcel had been sent back to Austria. He had already gotten that news, didn't agree with it, but when you were forced to attend dinner parties that turned out to be a full out coup d'état, it kind if took a back seat. And then the copious amount of alcohol took the passenger seat. Which really meant Tony shouldn't have been driving in the first place but story of his life.

Olivier bites his bottom lip. The words were intended to wound, but he feels like he just...stumbled onto a snag instead. Hans asked his help on that; she should take it up with--  
  
(Riiiight, Hans left her there.)  
  
So, she didn't want to be around his stuff, he could get that (he boxed his Dad's room up a long time ago and locked the door). But why here in the meantime?

"Okay, I can recommend any number of hotels--" Olivier starts to try, but she's turned back to Tony with her hand on her hip.   
  
She asks, "Do you mind if I stay here?"  
  
Tony really wished Stefanie would have kept pretending he didn't exist, facing him fully was a lot more painful. Not that he wasn't usually masochistic but that was why he was watching bad French tv.  
  
Given that his vocal chords were still not working, he just put his hands up, gesturing to himself and shrugging. Least he can do right? Right? Well that and forget she ever called him a coward and compared him to his father. Poof, out of his mind, so easy!  
  
No, it wasn't, of course not.  
  
Eyebrows inching together with a squint suddenly as Stef watches Tony shrug, she unfolds her arms and goes to pick her bags up. Shrugging? Seriously? Okay, fine, if he was going to be that way she was too. She tried to give him the chance to tell her no -- or, give her...something, anything, any kind of explanation. He didn't. Given that she barely can think past the screaming in his heart rate anyways, she thinks the best thing to do, likely, is get her ass upstairs.   
  
(Human speed, Stef.)  
  
Bags to her side she continues, "See? He doesn't mind. Danke, Tony, so glad." Her teeth hurt with the words as she huffs and tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder again.   
(Tony thought vampires were relentless, soulless, monsters. She should tell him the truth, both of them, but after what just happened? Stefanie honestly can't handle seeing his 'told you so' face.)  
  
"Which room is mine?"  
  
Olivier was gaping at her, but she let that slide.  
  
"Seeing as how neither of you offered to help me with my bags, I'll just see to it myself then, shall I?"   
  
And without meaning to (really), she just bustles right back past Tony, making him turn his shoulder again (at least then she knew he was reacting to her) before turning the corner to mount the stairs.   
  
When she was out of view, she immediately sped off at her normal pace now, relieved to put this much distance between her and that...delicious scent. The room she stayed in last time, when she was eleven, was near the top of the stairs. She was through the door and gulping down the rest of the bag before she even blinks. Tears had reappeared in her eyes and once the bag was empty, she just starts barricading the door shut. Dressers, desks, chairs...anything. It wasn't to keep her safe, like usually true in bad horror flicks--but to keep them safe from her.  
  
(But she still hears, clear as day, Olivier turn to Tony and say dead-pan, "...Guess she's staying here."  
  
And inspite of it all she let's out a little sigh of relief and smiles to her self, grateful it was true.)


	7. Audrey.

Audrey Powell walked down the stairs of her home, maneuvering around the toys, the stack of boxes they couldn’t find another place for, and dirty laundry. At the last she scoffed and skipped the last step, landing directly in the kitchen. It was a small and cramped home to live in with five other siblings, but they were long used to it and they managed well. Audrey searched the small bar of the kitchen which they had repurposed as a desk, moving papers and backpacks out of the way as she searched for a pencil or pen. Finding one stabbed through a doll, Audrey pulled it out and then headed to the stairs again, picking up one of the boys’ underwear with a scowl, walking over to the corner of the room where their washing machine stood and dropped it in the basket that was overflowing to the top.  
  
"Alton! Rinaldi! Get your asses down here!" Audrey shouted up the stairs before heading to the stereo Magnus Powell had bought for the house. In her father's words, every home needed a proper entertainment system. The stereo was in the living room which the front door immediately opened to. He had put an anti-burglar spell on it as well, which turned out to be for the best because that week half the neighborhood tried to break in to get to it. The baseball bat saw more action that week than it had the entire time Malik had been on the team. Audrey almost threw it out, until she found a way to repurpose it as well. Their sound system was now the kids’ alarm clock. Picking up the remote, Audrey turned it on and soon the house was blasting with Malik’s Drake CD.  
  
Audrey ran up the stairs again and opened the bedroom doors, walking into Nora and Terrance’s room. She woke her sister gently, passing a hand through her hair. Parents weren’t supposed to choose favorite children but there was no rule against that for children choosing favorite siblings and right now, and the majority of the time, Nora was Audrey’s favorite. She was the only other girl in the home now that their mother was in jail, not that she had been around much even when she did live here, and a lot of help especially with baby Terrance. Terrance had recently turned three years old, and with it was properly potty trained and thank the Lord because diapers were expensive as fuck.  
  
"Last day of school before winter break, get up," Audrey spoke quietly as Nora turned around and tried to bury herself in the covers again. Audrey turned away and then picked up Terrance from the crib and tried not to wince at the reminder that they needed to buy another bed soon. He was already awake and babbling through words that were only half made up. She put him on her hip and kissed his forehead before moving out of the room, leaving the door open before heading to the twins’ room.  
  
She rapped her knuckles on the door, her tone instantly changing.  
  
"Didn’t I say to do the laundry yesterday? Get up!"  
  
Alton and Rinaldi slept on wooden bunk beds they’d had since they were ten. Their father had made it for them before he had disappeared. Magnus offered to buy them another, or separate beds even, but they refused to part with them even if their feet stuck out of the bottom edge during the night. She smacked their feet now to finish waking them up. She stepped back to be able to glare at them both properly without having to look up and down repeatedly.  
  
"The last thing I need to find when I get back home after my shift at three in the fucking morning is your nasty ass drawers on the stairs. Get up!"  
  
"Go away," Rinaldi groaned, throwing his pillow at her. Audrey pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows and then took his arm and dragged him out of the bed, letting him fall on the floor. The loud thump was enough to make Alton sit up and take notice, forgetting the ceiling in his wake and effectively hitting the top of his head as he did. Both of them groaning in pain and cursing, Audrey considered it a job done and moved on.  
  
"Last day, get dressed, and get downstairs."  
  
Audrey kissed the top of Terrance’s head again as he clapped his hands together and giggled, no doubt at the way she treated their brothers.  
  
"Promise not to be a pain in the ass like that, alright?"  
  
"Kay!" Terrance agreed happily. He alternated responses to questions every week. Sometimes he said yes and okay to everything they asked him, and sometimes the only thing he could say was no.  
  
"I’ll hold you to that," Audrey murmured with a small smile before reaching Malik’s room. He had awoken the moment she opened his door and he heard the music. Malik was her older brother, 21 years old, and he was legally their guardian. A year ago when their mother was arrested while Audrey was in Hogwarts, he stepped up to have custody over all of them. He worked at an art museum, and didn’t make enough to support all of them and after their grandmother became too old to help Audrey decided to leave school to help. The twins also pitched in. Alton was paid when someone needed him to hack into a stolen phone or laptop, and Rinaldi worked a part time after school for a few hours at a gas station. Nora sometimes even managed to get some pocket money every now and again but no one actually knew how she got it.  
  
Malik was brushing his teeth, using a plastic cup with some water to rinse before spitting it out the window. It landed on the neighbor’s cat, an angry yowl heard from the yard below. Audrey rolled her eyes, muttering unbelievable before moving further inside, bouncing Terrance on her hip as Malik now moved to shaving. He didn’t take up the bathroom during the morning, knowing that they all shared one and he liked his sleep too much to get up earlier to take a shower in peace like Audrey did.  
  
"Hey, were you able to get an advance?" She asked quietly, knowing the answer even as she asked it. If he had, he would have paid Terrance’s babysitter already. Malik shook his head and continued shaving.  
  
"I’m not going to confound her this time, Malik," Audrey spoke firmly, setting her limit. They had already done that three times before, and Audrey had enough. They couldn’t keep swindling the woman who ran the daycare they left Terrance at. One more year, Audrey told herself over and over again. One more year and Terrance could go to primary school. And you bet your ass Audrey was going to try and sneak him next September, even if he would only be three still, technically. December babies, they just made everything so much more difficult.  
  
"What are we going to do with Terrance then, Audrey, please enlighten me."  
  
"I can’t take off work anymore, Malik. The only reason Chip hasn’t fired me is because he still thinks I’m gonna shag him one day," Audrey explained with annoyance. Anybody else would have fired her. It was at times like this she really wished she had a time turner. Maybe she should take Magnus’ offer of visiting him at work one day so that she could sneak off and try to steal one. It would make her life a hell of a lot easier.  
  
"You could always just marry for money, you know."  
  
Audrey scoffed, “Yeah, so could you smartass. It still leaves us the problem of what to do about Terrance.”  
  
"Leave him with the twins," Malik offered, putting the razor down and then turning towards their little brother who was impatiently leaning away from her so he could hug Malik. Malik picked him up with a grin, greeting him with a ‘hey little man’, pretending to pay absolute attention to what Terrance was saying. If Audrey’s favorite sibling was Nora, then Malik’s was Terrance.  
  
Audrey shook her head, crossing her arms before catching a look at herself in Malik’s mirror. She turned to fully face it and fixed her make-up before taking her hair out of the ponytail to straighten that out too.  
  
"It’s the last day of the semester and they have finals. I’m not pulling them away from school."  
  
"You pulled yourself away from school for us, why can’t they?" Malik asked, stating exactly why Audrey wouldn’t have been able to stay in school to begin with. Malik would have made all these kids fend for themselves and done little else but put food on the table the majority of the time.  
  
"They need school, I don’t, and they’re not missing it." Audrey took Terrance back so that Malik could finish getting ready and so Audrey could finish getting Terrance ready because apparently, she would be taking him to work with her today. The shift wasn’t that long, as long as she kept him strapped to a toddler seat and left him by the hostess…right, who was she kidding? She would just have to take him to the daycare and beg and plead to take the half that Audrey had right now. At her shift she should be able to earn at least a dozen or two quids in tips, and then tomorrow morning after she got her tips from working the bar she could finishing paying-  
  
Alton stopped her as she was heading down the stairs and and pressed a few bills into her hand. Audrey breathed out and then kissed his forehead in quiet thanks. Alton took Terrance with him too so that their baby brother could use the little plastic loo Rinaldi had ‘found’ one day and Audrey took the opportunity to rush downstairs again to finish making the lunches. The CD was still blasting through the speakers and they would keep blasting until Nora got up from bed and came down to turn it off; she couldn’t stand it.  
  
As she worked, Audrey heard a peck at the window and leaned over to slide it up, smiling at Daffy, Magnus’ pet owl. Whenever Magnus was done reading The Prophet, he sent it for her and Malik to read. Or so he said, but the paper was always too tightly wrapped for it to have been previously opened. Audrey guessed that working at the Ministry kept one pretty in touch with news anyways. She untied the paper from Daffy’s talons, and petted the crown of its head with the back of her knuckles as she unrolled the paper. Once she had, Daffy hooted affectionately and flew out, black wings spreading and flapping as he was airborne again.  
  
Audrey quickly finished the lunches before returning to the paper. Picking it up, she leaned against the counter and read the headline: Undead Genius Destroys Death Eaters From Inside. Audrey perused it quickly, muttering to herself that now Notre Dame being on fire two days ago suddenly made sense before her eyes landed on a picture in the center of the page. The moving picture showed a group of four people, the Minister and his family as it said in the caption below it. That wasn’t what caught her interest though.  
  
A moment later she had the mobile up to her ear and several seconds later a groggy voice answered.  
  
"Hey Ror, sorry about waking you up," Audrey turned to the clock and then briefly winced as she only noticed the time. It was 6:52 in the morning. Rory told her not to worry about it, and immediately asked her what was up. He knew her mobile had limited minutes, as did his, and she wouldn’t call him unless it was an emergency. Well, it might not have been an emergency, but it was important.  
  
"You’re friends with Devin Stuart now, right?" How much changed in the year she had been out of Hogwarts. When Rory told her about all his new relations last summer, she could scarcely believed it. She knew Devin too, but the shy and quiet boy who sat at the back of the class and who she sometimes ended up partnering with was nowhere to be found in the picture she stared at. Someone had a really good summer, and a really shitty past few months especially considering what he had turned to. There was no doubt in her mind that she recognized that mark.  
  
"What do you know about that rune on his hand?"


	8. Waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You look tired, love.
> 
> (But you don't sleep the same as you used to).

|| Stefanie ||

Her hand rests on her mouth, its upturned edges. She thinks it's to stop herself from realizing how stained the pillow is beside her; had her tears actually been red, did she fucking cry like on True Blood now? (Oh no, she'd just cried after feeding on the last damn blood bag she could find). The pointed tips to her teeth had vanished at least, and the pounding in her head was gone (it had been easy, so easy all night to slip undetected through the shadows in the manor). She knew she should tell them. Both of them. That was why she was there.  
  
It was just when she opened that door, and saw the look on Tony's face, the shock, the guilt, the apology -- it was the relief there that had killed her the most. Well, you know. Besides the whole, blood-drinking, neck-snapping, Marcus...thing (she just wasn't going to think about that right now). The relief that she was still there. The words "I told you I'd come find you" were on the tip of her tongue. Then she realized she could hear an uptick in his heart, realized hybrid or not she still wanted to (...well) -- him, still wanted him -- and she tastes the words turn to dirt in her mouth.  
  
Today, she promised herself, staring at the little minute hand on an antique clock that's standing on her bedside. She'd tell them today, after she was...calm. Stead--  
  
Hearing a step from outside her door, realizing it was about to open again, she flipped the pillow around quicker than human eyes could detect (she has to admit, that she could get used to), and shuts her eyes quickly, pretending she's asleep.

|| Tony || 

He understood Stefanie wanting space, a lot of space actually but he didn't personally understand on why she wanted the space here. She had her own flat and yeah Hans had left, everyone had left, it was time to start getting this machine well-oiled again and get the cogs moving against each other, but why hadn't she just stayed at her apartment? She loved her balcony.

A silly part of him thought maybe she had wanted to talk or...something but given that she could barely look him in the face, that thought quickly jumped out the window where it proceeded to break into tiny little pieces before being absorbed by the ground.

He got up early on Sundays like he always did, picked out clothing for mass when he decided he was going to ask Stef to come with him. Their religious views was something they shared and frankly, they could use a little talk with God at the moment.

Knocking twice on the door, he opened it with a push, saying softly* Stef? *He walked in, blinking curiously at the stacked furniture he had to push out of the way, trying not to make much noise despite the fact that he was here to wake her. Even if on his own head be it.

"Stefanie?"

|Stefanie|

The first time the door had opened it had been Olivier - yet even before Tony spoke, or she spun around, she knew it was him. Was even the _memory_ of her senses heightened? It was instinctive; she seemed to know him by the rhythm of his heart in her ear. Well, she had listened to his pulse often. Those memories were -definitely- heightened, she could remember every inch. The moment he speaks a war in her chest erupts, her anger at him fighting the itch the timbre of his voice saying her name sparks under her skin. Seven hells.  
  
Tense or not, she didn't want to tell him with her back to him, so she rolls over - eyes blinking open slowly as if to clear a haze that wasn't there. She could see him easily, every gorgeous inch, even though (or maybe because) her curtains still hung over the windows. He...was wearing a suit. Well, not a suit, but those were not casual clothes. Her throat was dry (burning), but she wasn't too surprised to hear how smooth her own response was. Vampire trick.

"...your Sunday best?" Her eyes finally flick from his chest to meet his - and she tries to ignore the abrupt ache. " I don't know if I should be flattered or concerned. Or I would say that," she blinks, a small smirk darting across her lips and then disappearing, "if I had not just recalled it actually  _is_ Sunday. 

|Tony|

He didn't know whether he was relieved or further worried that she had answered him so smoothly, her voice like the silk that the bed sheets were made out of. He expected her to throw something at his head, tell him to get out, engage in some melodramatic monologue about never wanting to see his face again. But being calm, her usual witty self, that he didn't expect. And he didn't particularly want it if she was lying through her teeth. Problem was, he couldn't tell.

"I find my best is actually unclothed," he shrugged after putting his hands in his pockets, a small smirk in place from habit along, "but I wouldn't want to desecrate the house of God." He pauses for one moment when he reaches the foot of her bed. 

He asks, "You feeling up for Mass?" 

|Stefanie|

It was like they were having two conversations, she thinks, at least according to her ears. Two conversations and he didn't know that the other was happening. Tony couldn't hear the blood pumping through his heart (the rabbity one, her own was only beating to pump stolen blood through her veins, and it was slower than a -dead- rabbit at this point). Tony didn't taste a want at the back of his throat that threatens to shift her face, the tops of her gums aching abruptly -- at least until he stopped walking.  
  
Stefanie takes a breath. Habit, she thinks drily. She didn't need to do that anymore, but her brain didn't recognize that (yet?); and hey, at least it helped her hide it. Only the half-spoken exhale of his name disappears at the remark.

"Aha, well." She was enjoying the smirk on his lips, "I can't say I disagree with either point." 

Stefanie was trying to keep her eyes stuck on his now. Because otherwise, she was going to wind up looking at his neck. Question, did blood actually sing, or was that just her weird, Salzburg-loving interpretation of it? Tony could stop her though, and what he suggested was equally calming.

She smiles slightly, but this time it's honest as she asks, "Mass?"

It was a tiny, incredulous echo. Mass, right...Sunday. She blinks (another habit), and then sits up, trying to force herself to do it slowly, letting the sheets fall off her without shame (pointless, especially now, she knew her skin was practically aglow).

"Well, I haven't missed a Sunday in six and a half years...so, yes."

She pauses, brows furrowed, still stuck on his eyes.

"...You want to go with me?"

|Tony|

"Mmh," was his simple response along with a nod to her one-word-one-syllable question. There were dozens of joke he could have made running through his mind at that moment but he chose not to say them out loud. Not because they wouldn't be appreciated, and they wouldn't at least not as much as they would have before, but because he was actively trying not to veil anything with some quick jokes.  
  
Let it be a mark of his growing self-restraint that his gaze didn't wander as her sheet fell down but then again that didn't mean he wasn't looking. It was just a peripheral view, except not really because it wasn't to the sides it was at the very center- focus again.

Her small smile was encouraging, especially as he hadn't said anything funny. This was a record.

"If you can stand my company, yes." He smiles as well. "Though I admit even I am not much fond of myself at the moment." 

|Stefanie|

If she could stand his company? She almost chuckles bitterly again. Her gaze drops. The edges of her eyes twitching as if her gaze aches to harden and she only breathes breathes to insure it won't. She wasn't wearing much, she realized as she looks down, because she'd been so terrified of getting blood on her clothes; camisole and short shorts was all she'd allowed. Right, because he was there when Marcel died. Held her back when she screamed, railed, in a way that no one was ever going to be able to hold her back again.

"You shouldn't say that, Tony." Her nose wrinkles up as she speaks soft, as she finally meets his eyes again.

"Self-loathing is...apart from being dramatically unhealthy," she shrugs a shoulder, pushing herself out of the bed, words idle, "bit of a turn off."

It probably said something about the state of her humanity (what a funny word) that it was that thought that calmed her enough to leave the bed, but she couldn't care. (Literally, she couldn't). "Why shouldn't I want your company?"

She was talking as she walked to the closet she'd already filled, trying to use that to distract him because it was effortless to move now, and sliding through the air would be a giveaway. Pulling the dresses apart, she mutters quite matter of fact, "Because you held me as my brother died before my eyes?"  
  
Ah - that one, that would at least pass for church. Desecrating the house of God wasn't on her to-do list either. Pressing her lips together to try and stave off the sudden burning, since her back is turned to him she stops breathing. At least that way she couldn't smell it so easily. Her hand rests on the fabric, petting her cashmere to give herself a moment. It was only then she realized what she'd said was...well, as rude as she'd been accusing both he and Olivier of being, and she stiffens, looking over her shoulder, breathing again as her gaze meets his. She nods quickly.

"Yes, please, I would like you there."  
  
As she feels the teeth descending again behind her closed mouth, she swivels quickly to tug the dress down and says simply,

"Actually, I think I...need you, there."

Her hand is on the gold cross around her throat.  
  


|Tony|

"Where were you to tell me that ten years ago?" He said it jokingly with a smile on his face, but it was far from a joke. Not the wondering where she was, he knew that, but it was just a little too late for him on that aspect. Besides, there were far more important things that were unhealthy in his life. For instance, his breakfast had consisted of a bowl of oatmeal with powdered cinnamon on top (that only reminded him of the woman in front of him) and then a glass of whiskey. He had many problems and not many he was willing to work on. Tony didn't put himself on top priority, that just wasn't his style.  
  
"More because I had a chance to save your brother but I chose to keep you safe instead."

How did that leave his throat so easily? He focused on watching her get dress which was an image far more pleasant than the one threatening to take over his mind.  
  
"Need?" His eyebrows rose, voice laced with concern. "That's a curious choice of words."

|Stefanie|

A decade ago...that was a curious thought, thinking about the passage of time at all, time as if it meant something. It does, did...how long would that be true for her? (A long ass time if she got her way, which Stefanie always did).  
  
Still it rings oddly in her ear as her hand drops from her neck, so she doesn't respond. She just tugs the dress and sweaters down, tossing them behind her onto the bed and moving towards the connecting door to the bathroom.  
  
At least, until she heard him, as clear as if he'd spoken right beside her, and Stefanie has the curious sensation that a chill was going through her, twining around her spine, only she was already so cold she couldn't feel it at all.

"Yes, curious indeed."

Her eyebrow cocks as she looks back at him, hand on her door knob. She speaks, words crisp now, on a throat still too hot to even think of breathing on.

"But see, I wouldn't want you save me only to lose me because I pass out in front of a priest," or kill him, and the patrons, and probably the deacon too - god, she was so bloody hungry, "so, probably for the best I don't go alone."  
  
There's a moment now, when she meets his gaze that the chill slips away, and the twitching edges give way to show hurt and fear. The ache only makes the hunger worse and suddenly afraid she might try and jump him after all, she just swallows and looks away, adding, "Wouldn't do much to help your self-loathing problem, I expect -- I'm just going to shower, I'll meet you downstairs in ten."  
  


|Tony|

There was no anger in her eyes yet as she turned towards him again and told him that it would be for naught if he lost her fainting. That didn't really do anything to calm his nerves, as he just wanted to walk over and cup her cheeks and ask her to explain so he could help but the moment passed, and...something just stopped him.*  
  
"Ten minutes then."

He nodded and then walked out of her room, heading downstairs and keeping himself from pouring another drink.

It was difficult.

|Stefanie|

Could she actually calm down in ten minutes? Well, she was going to have to. And a shower would be bloody good anyways. Slipping behind the door, she's relieved to fall back into moving naturally again - or well, unnaturally, but smooth and with ease, the clothes seeming just to fall off her. She left on her necklace, and turned the lights down, waving a few candles with her hand instead. It was easier to see that way; her head pounded less.  
  
Hell, this bathroom was huge. She'd stayed in this manor before but...wow. And there appeared jets in that tub that might be rather fun to try with Tony later --" God, "she mutters that under her habitual breath, for she just couldn't focus, could she?  
  
She blasted the water all the way on hot, scrubbing hard until she was certain the scent of the blood was off her -- when closer, she wouldn't be surprised if Tony could feel it. and focused on the blood bag she'd had, until she thought she could feel warm again. At least enough to pass before Mass -- after that, she promises herself, stepping out and into a fluffy robe, after that, she'd tell him. Once she'd...prayed.  
  
Stefanie doesn't dare look at the mirror; terrified at that moment that she wouldn't see her own reflection - but she did get a glimpse of her hair as she re-entered her room to dress at top speed, and felt herself catch another unnecessary breath. Good. At least she had a reflection. Look, she couldn't remember what was fact and fiction and she had forever to figure it out, okay?

|Tony|

They had been having such a great day, one of his most memorable birthdays and then...disaster. Now every year, on his birthday, all Stefanie would be able to think about would be the day she lost her younger brother. A day that should have been celebration was marred by catastrophe.  
  
Stefanie had seen her brother die in front of her eyes and had been helpless to save him. Tony stopped her from even trying. He was probably not the best person to help Stefanie through this but anybody who could...well Hans was gone and left her behind, so had Ansel (good riddance) so there wasn't really anybody left for her was there? Tony was definitely calling in Irene and Eliza for help, and the resident fuh-reeeek too.

|Stefanie|

Once she was dressed, her heels strapped on and sweater zipped, she stood warily in front of the full-length dress mirror It was easier to smile when she could see for herself there was an image looking back at her. (Recognizing herself would have to wait for another time). It was a near thing, she thinks. Blonde hair, blue eyes, porcelain skin, pink lips -- white dress, gold necklace, tan sweater with pink flowers. How innocent she looked.  
  
The girl she killed had probably been innocent once too.  
  
Mass was definitely the right call, she thinks, as she stood at the bottom of the stairs. She was tucking a straight strand of her hair back and focusing on her ear to listen for when Tony would approach, offering a small smile when he did, trying to appear as shaky as she felt, for at least it would be human of her to do that. Her words were still smooth, still softer, 

"...Thanks, for offering. Somehow I doubt the thought would have crossed Olivier's mind."

|Tony|

Hearing steps coming down the staircase (barely, he had forgotten how poised Stefanie was as a model), he walked out of the parlor after picking up his jacket to meet up with her. Offering a smile again, he was a little more relieved to see her more at ease.

"It depends on the Sunday. He's already out though."

It wasn't easy being the uncrowned King of France, especially after reclaiming his throne. There was a pause before he added with another smile, "You look beautiful."

Another pause and he clapped his hands together and tilted his head to the door.

"You want something to eat before we go?"

|Stefanie|

"Oh, but he actually still goes? Huh."

Good for Olivier. It...was a surprise, but then nothing really was making sense to her anymore.

"Glad to hear that."  
  
Well, except that. That made sense. Men had told her that all her life (and girls too, whether enviously or otherwise): you look beautiful. Stefanie knew she'd long turned it into a weapon, even before..well. This was just because this was new to her, she tells herself. Control was possible. She knew that, she would find it. In the meantime, she just had to insure she didn't hurt anyone (else) as she worked at it.

(A small part of her, one she won't give voice too, thinks there's a different reason entirely she thought it was safer around Tony; that she wants him there).  
  
"Mm, drop-dead gorgeous. "Her agreement is a dry hum so as not to give away her amusement at her own irony, on the raw throat. They both pause.

"You too."  
  
Well, he did, and her smile was softer as she added it. Feeling the ache in her gums recede, Stef decides not to question it. Seeing his jacket she realizes she'd left hers as the unnecessary garment it was upstairs and stills, turning her head. Quickly summoning it, she waits to catch it as she hears his question and barely restrains a grimace, certain the want passed through her eyes anyway, so thank the Lord she was turned the other way.

She turns back, managing a small, "I'm not hungry, thanks."  
  
Only she pauses as she catches her jacket, slipping it on and  stills near the door. No, that's wrong. She didn't want to lie to him. Lying was the one thing they'd never done. As she replaces the last button, she looked back up and corrects herself quietly, small smirk still in place,

"Actually, I'm starving, but I'll eat after the service. Consider it a...penance, I guess."  
  
See? There, she could be honest: and she would have to eat after mass, but that was when she was going to tell him (she swears to herself). Nodding with her head and a flick of her hair, she echoes,

"Shall we?"


	9. Stillness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You stand so still, love. Like a statue.
> 
> (Like a corpse).

|Stefanie|

She'd forgotten how damn bright the sun was (and quickly had to locate her sunglasses, grateful at least that this would keep her skin warmer, as it fought to burn even -with- the protection potion she'd taken. She forgot that, and it surprised her (and she'd laughed honestly) when she realized they were going in -his car-. So maybe it was the sun, or her amusement that Tony was driving (awesome car, too). Or maybe it was the people in the lot that she suddenly had to stand so rigid against and focus on holding on to the cross necklace she wore to stop from attacking (the sun probably helped there, she knew she was weaker too). Or maybe it was just because she really, really wanted to go into the church; it might not be the one she'd usually gone to, but she'd always found peace inside those doors before -- sanctuary, and it was right that she go: pray for Marcel, for Hans, for the girl whose name she wished she knew.   
  
So for all of that then (or none of it; she didn't know), somehow, Stefanie didn't realize until the holy facade was standing a few feet away...

Oh.   
  
She stands as still as the marble statue of one of the Saints they were beside.

|Tony|

It sounded like a lie even before Stefanie took it back. First because one of the things he loved about Stefanie was that despite her modeling career, she didn't starve herself. She also never skipped breakfast, at least not when he made it and granted he also had the tendency to let her eat it off him so there was that. He almost asked penance for what but realized that was a conversation better left for after. Maybe they would both be a little less on edge after mass.  
  
Getting to the church, he closed the car door shut and took off his own sunglasses, putting them in his pockets as they walked towards the heavy wooden doors, only to stop as he realized Stefanie wasn't walking next to him anymore. Turning around to look at her, his eyebrows arched in confusion before he put voice to his question.

"What's up? Forget something, or you don't like the church?"

And how was she able to stay so still? She could have been a wax figure like those they made of stars that he had visited once with his buddies from college. Unmoving, unchanging, not even her chest rose up and down for a moment. Worry took over completely again and he took a few steps towards her.

"Stef, is something wrong?"

|Stefanie|

She didn't actually hear him at first; or rather, his words, because his heart had suddenly started about a hundred times faster, his face contorting and he was moving towards her again in worry, in heat, in something. Some extreme of emotion, unaware of the danger he was walking along. She wasn't entirely unused to it: after all, that was something they shared, or...had.  
  
Her lips lift with his question, as if she was coated in honey -- if honey could poison and incense. Ice cold eyes flicker from the church, to his, and then back, stuck on the stained glass, looking through the fragmented, multi-colored light. She shook her head very quickly. Maybe too quickly. Maybe he hadn't seen.  
  
Demons could not walk on hallowed ground. That was how pop culture put it...but Stefanie had grown up in a Roman catholic school, she knew it was even worse than that for her. Corinthians, ten twenty-one. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too. The damned Corinthians might as well have known they were talking about vampires, all the references to the Lord's table being denied to demons and--  
  
Ow, hell, that..hurt. She still hurt, she still bled, evidently, because she was fairly sure she almost bit clean through her tongue and definitely tasted the dizzying remnants of her stolen sustenance on it's tip. It's jarring, and it makes her say something she didn't ever expect to say to Tony: or rather, ask something of him she didn't expect to ask. If Olivier and Tony and their Nonna all still went to mass...but she wasn't a hybrid, she was -- 

"Your father. Did he - could he go to church with you?"

|Tony|

"My father?"

His surprise made him take a step back entirely. Why would she ask him about his father? Besides the fact that it was pretty obvious he avoided speaking of the man as often as he could, that mention just came out of nowhere. He tried to search her gaze for an answer, and made a mental note to practice the subtle art of eyebrow communication with her as well, and only found panic, wariness, and even a little bit of...hunger.

"Yes, he could....why are you..."  
  
Her chest still didn't move up and down save for when she spoke, because words needed breath to come out. She was worried about entering the church, had locked herself in her self-declared room and all of these were things which he would never think twice about and that he had been attributing to the rough time that she must be having after Marcel's death. It had only been three days after all.  
  
Yet now he saw what he should have noticed. Now he remained still, knowing it was nothing compared to the way she could freeze like a statue, like a....well, like a corpse.

"Stefanie, you didn't."

He whispered, the words falling from his mouth without a thought as he stared at her, mouth parted.

|Stefanie|

"He could."

She latched onto that first, feeling her chest depress as she shifts, as if sighing in relief with a breath she'd never drawn.

"I'm sorry, for mentioning him, I just -- " She breaks off and nods to herself, only to feel the worry rise again as the sun glares down too bright and too hot; how long did this potion last anyway? (She finds the sunglasses again as she sees him look in her eyes). What if it was something like that? What if Remington D'Grey had just had some potion, or talisman or spell even and that was why he could, but she couldn't?   
  
She knew she'd left Marcus intentionally. It was both because he'd clearly not had any interest in tutoring her -- and because she wasn't entirely sure he'd not just kill her (well, again) after all. Right that second? Oh, how she wished she'd asked for more...clear-cut instructions.  
  
Especially when she hears the sudden judgment in Antonio's tone and she goes still again, bringing her gaze back from the window. She considers for a second passing off the question (her skin had to be hot enough to pass, and she knew a spell that meant she could trick him into finding a pulse) -- but when she realized it was from shame, she steadies. No. She would not be ashamed. This was her choice, and however much she knew she still had to figure out, she knew why she did it: her brother, the only family she had left in this goddamn world, was alone, and unprotected. As he'd reminded her, according to the law he didn't exist: she had no intention of letting that happen for real. She wasn't ever going to be so helpless as she'd been watching Marcel die, not ever again. And "ever" had just become an entirely different word to her.  
  
"I didn't what?" Her lips curl up in that dangerous, predator way without her trying - her voice still silk, and she flicks her gaze over him.

"Antonio?"

|Tony|

"Jesus Christ."

He exhales again, having to fight turning away from her because he didn't want her to think he couldn't look at her, but he also wanted to hide all of the emotions that he felt rising up in his chest and throat.  
  
Tony was not unbiased when it came to this. Remington had been a vampire, Remington had been a demon on this Earth to him. He had seen with his own eyes the brutality a vampire could do, and he had been mentored by a fucking vampire hunter for pity's sake. He was definitely not unbiased here.  
  
That had also been when things had been more cut and dry in his mind. He knew it wasn't like that anymore in his life; he knew the atrocities he himself had committed and he saw humans commit even worse ones. Tony was still wrapping his mind around the idea that he could feed without hurting anyone because he so badly wanted to believe his brother was right, but there was a sick feeling in his gut still.  
  
Stefanie had died. Despite the fact that she was standing there in front of him, challenging him, she had died with vampire blood in her veins. And in some ways she was dead now. Life was change, life was growth, life was aging and life was a promise of death in the end.  
  
He passed a hand over his mouth to close it, biting down on his bottom lip but being careful not to break the skin as he realized how thirsty she must be. Her throat must be burning, her gaze easily flickering to pulse points, and her ears distinguishing different heartbeats for meters around.  
  
"You're a vampire." He finds his voice again after all. "Stefanie..." he takes a step forward anyways, his gaze trying to see beyond her sunglasses. "This is madness."

|Stefanie|

"Taking the Lord's name in vain...*It was with low humor she says that, unable to think of another thing to say and she had to talk - she had to say something, because his heart, seven hells Tony calm down, it was driving her mad, absolutely insane with want.  
  
All she'd heard from Olivier and then later Chantel -- all she heard about Remington himself, she'd never realized it might feel that way: the faster his heart beat, the less she seemed to recognize her own, the more she seemed to want to take those beats for herself. As if she was bursting with greed, envious with the life he was so easily, so casually full of and hungry for it herself.   
  
Or, maybe that was because Stefanie knew she'd been praying for God to forgive her for her envy as long as she could remember and it too was heightened. Stefanie didn't know. She just knew she was glad when he only took one step, even though he was now easily -- oh, his neck was right there, tantalizing, lit up by the sun she wanted to hide from, skin she'd already had her lips on more than once. Hell, skin she'd bitten more than once...  
  
She's drawn from the thoughts (barely) and the sudden swirling need when he speaks again (thank God), and she shudders at the word. Vampire. Why did it suddenly sound so awful, when yesterday it had sounded like salvation? Because she was standing outside a church?  
  
(It was Tony, and she knew too well how his father had treated him. How Remington D'Grey had been).  
  
I'm not -- I mean, I am," she says quickly, still not wanting to lie, realizing she was moving her chest abruptly again, breathing unnecessarily and yet -- it felt like she had never needed to breathe more, "but I'm not going to -- when I realized what I might -- I knew you, and Olivier, you've...controlled it, and you were the only ones I could think of who might..."

She falters, hearing hurt in her voice and feeling tears pearl behind her eyes and she's suddenly very glad to know she wasn't going to cry blood standing on a church's steps.

"Help. I was going to-- to tell you today, I just --" Still, she looks down, pulling the sunglasses off again to rub away the tears -- knowing being extra emotional was part of it and still hating it. She didn't want to cry in front of him. It was quiet when she said,

"But then you suggested...I have a lot to pray for, Tony."

|Tony|

But she was a vampire, that first rejection made no sense to him at first. Hearing it play over again he realized what she maybe had been trying to say. I am a vampire, but I'm not the monster you associate them with. And that was easy to believe because this was Stefanie. Beating heart or not, changing or not, that didn't change the fact that he knew her before. And yet it had, because nothing was the same anymore.  
  
Stefanie had thought it through, he realized. She had quickly made the decision to stay with them, knowing she would need their help. The only slightly relieving aspect about that was that she had realized even before the fact she'd been bitten, that it would be tough. That was an understatement like he'd never heard before. And it wasn't very comforting as far as reliefs came and went.  
  
And he controlled it? That was pretty laughable. Wrong brother, because Tony felt he actually had way less self-control than an emotional newborn vampire. This was, how could she--  
  
"You can't go in there."

He said abruptly, licking his dry lips.

"You said you were hungry, and if you haven't fed, a closed room with all those beating hearts around you is not- " he shook his head as his voice died out. God worked in mysterious ways they said. Right now, Tony was pretty sure he was having a pissin' good laugh about this.  
  
"Stef," he whispered again, exhaling, now looking into her eyes.

"...why? why would you choose this?"

|Stefanie|

"Oh I can't?"

Now her eyes do harden, a glint of irritation passing through them as she pulls herself a little taller, having no trouble in her heels and stature to meet his eyes. She didn't bother faking her breath now; they might be in public, on the steps of a church, all those people behind those doors just as he so easily described -- so tantalizing an image, frankly, that she wondered briefly if he was speaking from experience.  
  
Which was the point of this, she tries to remind herself. The task gets easier as he looks back into her eyes -- her actual eyes now, not the shades or hooded glances. It calms her...for a second anyway, a second long enough to decide she didn't really want to prove that if she wasn't about to be zapped by lightning, then she'd damn well like to see him try and stop her.  
  
Still, her voice was...crisper now as she responded, "I didn't say I didn't feed, Tony. I said I was hungry. I also said that I had no intention of eating until after Mass," her chin comes up as she hears the doors closing, distant bells beginning to ring the hour," ...and I don't. Penance."

(For Marcel. For Hans. For that girl. For herself)  
  
A little quieter, as she dares not breathe with him so close now, more than necessary to form the words, "I did say I needed you here too."  
  
If her heart was beating (and it had to be somewhat, she tries to remind herself, even if it was slower than detectable by any machine or else blood wouldn't be circulating, and a stake in it wouldn't do a damn thing if she didn't need it) -- well. It probably would have skipped a beat at the look he gives her. Still, though she rocks on her heels, though she feels her chin drop and lift, she doesn't blink or look away. Her words were fervent, if soft still, only for his ears (and it was so, so easy to control that, to know who would be listening it was unbelievable).

"How could I choose this?"  
  
(It occurs to her suddenly he didn't ask at all what happened; just assumed that she had and while he wasn't wrong...she didn't know if she ought to be insulted or not.)

So she steels herself, and answers firmly, "My brother -- he died, partially to protect me. And now, now my family is gone, Tony. My mother. My father, my brother. Everyone I knew, they've either lied to me, or died." An eyebrow cocks as she shifts, her arms lifting and falling as she adds matter of fact, eyes darting over him, "Or betrayed me."  
  
She breathes out, hot, "Or left. And my entire life. My entire life, when someone has proclaimed to care about me, you -- you all end up making the choice for me, good-intentioned or not, deciding what I can and cannot handle, and I won't - I will not, be that helpless, ever again."

Her eyes glint, but from anger or sadness (or just plain hunger) right now she honestly couldn't fucking tell.

"And I won't lose anyone else. I won't."  
  
She arches an eyebrow very slowly, the shape of it perfect, lifting her hands to tuck back curls and shaking her head. She never breaks eye contact or blinks.

"Everything you've told me...well, Tony, we had other things in common before religion and a song of ice and fire - or even, before our brothers or the Gala -- my family's past, it's...complex. I just. I won't lose anyone else."  

|Tony|

She was going to give him attitude about this! Oh that was perfect, as if she hadn't just soul her soul- no, no, he couldn't think like that and he didn't want to think like that. He knew what a soulless person was like, the empty shell their body came, and Stefanie still had hers. She was still beautiful, still proud, still completely and entirely infuriating, she was just a little more (a lot more) deadly. Durable.  
  
He used to think that vampires didn't have souls, even the most behaved of them. That they were damned creatures that would be denied access through Heaven's gates and Tony never wanted more in his life to be wrong.

"Stef you could kill half those people without a blink for their blood before you even realized what you were doing, it-" but the look on her face was stubborn. Fuck if anyone had ever tried to stop her before, she wasn't be stopped now.  
  
She needed him. Stefanie had repeated that again after having said it at the house where Tony had already told himself not to make a big deal out of it. As good as it felt to be needed, to be wanted, he'd give that up, and his own humanity, if it meant Stef could keep hers.  
  
That was a strong case of 'people-protecting-her-for-her-own-good-but-against-her-will'. Tony had already done that to her. That was probably only second on her list of things that annoyed her or drove her crazy, with the first one being liars. As she quickly pointed out: everyone had either died or lied to her or betrayed her, left her. Out of all those three it was uncomfortable to realize he most belonged in the third category.  
  
She had made this decision in grief, after having lost everything. Marcel's death had been the straw that broke the camel's back. Tony could understand her though. 'Whatever it takes' he had told his brother. Whatever it took to save him. Tony had become a Death Eater, a killer, a manipulator, had fed on people until he ravaged him and he betrayed Emily. Becoming a vampire, that could seem pretty sane in comparison.  
  
He breathes out, passing a hand over his mouth again. He felt tears sting at his eyes and he cursed in annoyance over his own emotions at the moment. Tony had wanted her safe too. It felt ill-form to remind her (because surely the thought must have crossed her mind) that anybody she cared about still, anybody who she felt was there for her, they were mortal. They would all die eventually, it was part of life, but she would live on. Frozen in time.  
  
"You could have found another way, Stef. I would have helped you find another way."

He licked his dry lips, and swallowed on an equally as dry throat.

|Stefanie|

No, blood didn't sing to her, but it felt that way -- she might as well have been listening to .. oh, no, that was the mass of light's opening hymn, she could hear it through the door. Her eyes dart over his shoulder as he cut off. A light little smirk crosses her lips as she hears a song they both likely knew (and considering the contemporary nature of this version, she had to imagine for a brief moment at least - she could see why Tony came to here.  
  
She hums under her breath for a second to the tune, because it was so catchy -- come, now is the time to worship, come just as you are to worship-- -- and also because it was distracting her. It occurs to her briefly, the magnitude of his request for her to join her this morning: far beyond just, his understanding she might want to go, a church community...well. She missed her own, in Austria. The fact that he'd been willing to share it--  
  
Her gaze hardens as she listens (tries to), and has to swallows down a sudden burst of want, coupled with the terrifying fear, the understanding that she'd already failed to stop herself once -- something she knew she had to tell him, but couldn't seem to get the words out. Why was that? Tony had told her everything he did...she owed him the same respect (she could trust him, that was more important)...  
  
Her gaze swivels back to him and she unclenches her arms as she shakes her head rapidly again.

"No, you would have found your way. As you already did. I know this seems...extreme, Tony -- but," she breathes out harshly, trying to force the words out and not look away at the same time, "-- my only living family member is a werewolf, who - until recently, in any case, could transform at will. We can do magic, and there's ghosts floating around, and your brother and you, are -- well."

Another quick, unnecessary breath (would she ever learn?) as she licks her bottom lip and she turns slightly - because she heard the approach of a late patron and lets her voice die off. Watching them scurry by with polite "excuse moi's" -- she stiffens, tracking their movements with too much ease. She can feel the shift around her eyes, the want appearing there -- but it disappears as she looks back to Tony, she was sure of it. She shakes her head.

"It's no less insane than that. You would have found your way, I found my way."

She shrugs, but her shoulders are stiff, the scent now back in her throat.

"That's all."  
  
She clenches down on her teeth again and then adds quieter so she doesn't sound like she was snapping as much (except she was sure she was going to, and the problem was she didn't want to scare him, but--)  
  
Stef speaks while looking down him,

"Is there anyway I can help....calm your heart down? Because I can barely focus on your words right now."


	10. Forgiveness (?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know I should forgive you, love. But I've never been one much for that.
> 
> (Try God).

| Tony | 

Well at least his way didn't involve vampirism! But that was a childish and petulant comeback, and he didn't want to upset Stefanie further. For if she ever imagined telling him, this was surely not how she had picture him reacting, he was sure of it. He wanted to understand her wholly, completely, but some part of him just couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that this was a viable option. Tony wouldn't have ever considered something like this.  
  
But she felt out of places in a world of supernaturals. Even being a witch, she had grown to understood, been forced to understood that it wasn't enough anymore. If she wanted to increase her chances, she had to become superhuman too. She had found this way and chosen this way, and she didn't regret it. Tony knew she would eventually, but prayed for the opposite. Stefanie had suffered enough. She was such a great person who deserved great things, not this. Anything but this. An undead life driven by a thirst for blood.*  
  
"No, you can't."

He exhales and then closes his eyes, putting his hands on top of his head before murmuring, "Give me a moment."

Calming and breathing exercises he had learned to control his heartrate were helping him regain control. It was a rare talent, and it took ages to master, the art of slowing down your own heart but it was just one of the many things Miyagi had helped him with. If only anyone could help him help Stef right now.  
  
He opened his eyes again and looked at Stef, letting his arms fall back down to his side.

"I'll help you. I want to help you, Stef. I'm not leaving," he shook his head side to side, "I just wish..."  
  
What point was there in wishing anyways in this life? He unclenched his hand and waved it in front of his face. Didn't matter. Things were as they were, now it was time to...handle things.

"I believe we had plans with the Big Guy."

His gaze flick upwards towards the heavens, and after a heavy exhale, he looked back at Stefanie. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, all of which would surely end with them resorting to blows. He's dealt with newborn vampires before after all.

"I'll keep you in check."

|Stefanie|

Running her tongue along the back of her teeth, she nods instinctively when he pulls back, to 'give him a minute'. And she keeps her mouth shut, because she was sure for a few seconds there it was about to start watering. That almost makes her smirk too--see, it wasn't the first time that Tony had made her feel so...affected, attracted. It was just a different...lust. Or perhaps it wasn't that different- just an added one. (She was grateful for the conflict internally; so long as she was warring between them, she couldn't reach her anger...let alone the buried hurt she knew only too well was there).  
  
She marvels when she realizes he was succeeding; whatever exercise he had screwed his eyes up for, worked. She could hear his heart still, but it was calmer, almost soothing in the beat. Now if he could somehow...stop smelling so damn delicious. Yet that she knew, flicking her ear as if to double check that he truly was calmer, that she was going to have to get used to.   
  
Her chin comes up suddenly when he turns back and for a flash--when he starts to say that he won't leave her--she almost smiles again. It fades instantly as he trails off. I just wish...  
  
She 'just wished a lot' frankly, but for a second she looks at Tony and thinks--she had to say something about it, if only because she brought Remington up to begin with. Quietly, if a bit jerky from stiff limbs, she answers.

"I'm not endorsing anything that--he, did, Tony." Because of course, Tony would think of Remington, hell--she was well aware that he once told her vampires were a turn off for -him-. Seven hells. "I've never believed...that abilities define us, rather than circumstances and choices. And I'm...sorry, that I brought him up again. He was a monster. I... I, refuse to be."  
  
Then she straightens, relief coloring her already sun-burning cheeks as she's surprised by his immediate offer, but grateful...so grateful. Especially because she really did want to go through those doors just because she owed Marcel some form of memorial..  
  
She looks back around them quickly, wets her lip and says softer too as she moves again,

"...That is if you're certain I'm not about to get struck by lightning." the smirk she gives him is small, but completely genuine and so she thinks, well that's something at least.

|Tony|

And she chose to become a vampire. How exactly did that define her as now? A scared and desperate young woman who had lost everything and felt like she was without options? In that moment, he briefly understood the appeal of a dictatorship when you were the dictator: free choice could turn into such a problematic bother. Great, now he was turning into his father. The thought was enough to jar him out of the mindset to comment briefly.

"Now you're just quoting Dumbledore. "

Stefanie wasn't Remington, wasn't even close. But he knew the lust for blood was only one of the temptations that she would have to control. So he did want to help, he wanted to help keep her from turning into a monster. Between this and working to convince Oli to give up the business, he had his work cut out for him. You just couldn't make it easy on me for once? His gaze had flicked to the skies once more before returning to her eyes.

" You're not." He chuckles, shaking his head. "You're not going to burst into flames either. Come on," he tilted his head towards the doors, "and try not to breathe."

|Stefanie|

He was looking at her in such a way that she couldn't tell anymore if what he'd said was meant to twist at the slow-beating thing in the middle of her chest, or was just a joke (or was it both? usually, they were both). She decides quickly it wasn't something she could dwell on safely; emotions were just as overwhelming as the --  
  
Er, no, nothing at that moment was as overpowering as her hunger, but she could convince herself otherwise. She had to. Or else he was right, and she'd eat half the congregation long before they had poured the communion wine. Right up on that Lord's table, right there. Oh, he'd given her a glorious image to contemplate [in it, he was present too, but far from being a side dish, he was reveling as she would have been -- and maybe that was why she knew it was safe to be near Tony, because that she knew was a lie]. A glorious image, a tempting image...but seven hells, she hated to prove his low expectations right.   
  
So she keeps her chin steady as she follows his gesture. He's not saying -it will be okay- or -you're safe now-, but strangely, that's how she feels. When her hand accidentally (or maybe subconsciously she'd reached) brushes his, she feels a current go through her body. His thumb moved over the flash of her pulse-point, edging over. She looked at it, wondering, how was that...possible? So much feeling, so much sensation, just...there.  
  
And then she pulls back, letting her hands leap over her chest. It occurs to her, as she hesitates again on the threshold, looking at it, that it really didn't matter how easy his chuckle or how much she trusted he wasn't lying (he couldn't lie if he just didn't know the truth, right?). She still was terrified to cross over it, was afraid his specificity was just precluding "but you may be boiled like a lobster" or even just "you might be thrown through the stained glass, Bran Stark." It didn't matter, because she believed all her life that a church was a sanctuary; if it let her in now, what other demons could walk through? How often had she been in danger in the middle of mass? Or maybe it was just that evil couldn't enter (that didn't really fit, considering Remington had, but then he'd always been able to trick whoever he wanted.) And evil? With an exhale, she steps quickly over the threshold.   
  
She nearly bursts into song when absolutely nothing happens. It meant she was good after all, she wants to tell herself; God was always capable of knowing what was in your heart. Actually, she did burst into song, but at least the wasn't alone in that - the call to worship song was loud in her ears, the congregation's singing drowning out anything else for one blissful second. So, no wonder she sang.   
  
She turns back to Tony, eyes narrowed at his last statement with amusement. There was nothing but exasperation in his tone for a second: no anger, no intolerance, just a long-hidden-breathy- 'Really though?' and it makes her sigh in relief. And..then giggle, because she'd immediately failed what he asked her to "try", and shrugs a shoulder, rubbing at her throat and slipping up the aisle to the very edge of a pew. Her gaze was darting around the shiny, holy symbols: the candles lit, the arched carvings, the columns that stretched into circles above and housed painted ceilings of the heavens. Inside, the sunlight was less debilitating, muted through the stained glass. Her hands grip around the edge of the wood, (she was grateful it was wood, it was likelier to restrain her); but her eyes stay on the ceiling as she quiets. The music was dying off as the priest asked them to sit, and she does, startled by suddenly how loud again everyone's hearts were around her, and gritting her teeth.  
  
No, dammit, she wasn't going to prove him right, she wasn't going to be incapable of handling herself, no, please God, no.   
  
So she turns to him, and makes herself a smug statue of listening and self-righteousness. The kind that was only capable in such a gorgeous cathedral. All right, maybe she slips a little nearer him so she wasn't near the nice elderly couple beside her. They were on the end, and she'd chosen that pew specifically, because well frankly, it was easy to think their blood was dry and their hearts definitely weren't as loud as Tony's had been. She spins forward,  laying her hands back on her lap, and reminds herself why they were there easily the moment the priest moves to the reading.   
  
Oh, that was why everyone was in red. (It really wasn't helping with the temptations). It...was the third sunday of advent, naturally. The gospel would be of John the Baptist, and the readings about rejoicing, for Jesus' was near, and coming soon. (She didn't know how to rejoice, she realized, though she remembered clearly she had once on this day -- and the reason was obvious, for in her memory she, Hans, and Marcel were all in the pew together). This particular one turned out to be from the fourth chapter of the philippians, and it included a line that Stefanie felt sticking in her brain: "then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts." Her hand rested over her heart when he said it, and she drops her gaze from the priest to one of the flickering flames, nodding almost imperceptibly to herself. Stefanie did not realize she was shaking with an apparent echo of the candle, she just...thanked God that Tony was still sitting there beside her, running it over in her mind what he said: I'm not going to leave.  
  
When they move to offering each other a sign of peace, Stefanie shrinks from the couple in the seat, letting an innocent smile spread across her lips and begging forgiveness as she says she had a cold. At least the movements and light chatter permeated the air enough that when she looks back to Tony, she murmurs her own offering of peace under her breath, just for his ears (he was between her and anyone else anyway, and she felt a smug kind of pride to know it was the others he was protecting, and not herself).

"I'm not leaving either, Tony. I told you I'd come find you."

|Tony|

Tony was getting the undeniable feeling that she was now going through with this half to prove him wrong, and show off her restraint even as a newborn vampire. It's like he couldn't stop repeating that word in his head actually: vampire. Almost like he was trying desensitize himself to it. Here was to hoping.  
  
She didn't feel cold to the briefest of touches they had shared before sitting down. That made him feel a little better even knowing it was the sun. And her chest still rose and fell through the light sweater and dress- out of habit than necessity and it was in direct contradiction to what he had asked of her. Oi vey.  
  
His gaze flickered to those next to them, to the entire congregation who knew not the potential danger they were all in. It really was a miracle that an acute sense of smell did not transfer over as a hybrid because otherwise he knew that he would be in no condition to restrain himself, let alone Stefanie, and they would be giving a whole new meaning to the desecration of the house of God.  
  
He wished he could be paying more attention to the sermon. His eyes were forward but it was a whole new act of self-restraint to keep from looking over to Stef constantly. She was more still now, and he made a mental note to tell her to fidget a little more otherwise she looked too...well.  
  
He had once talked with one of Remington's vampire comrades years ago, while he was infiltrating the business, and they had a discussion of whether or not Jesus had been the first vampire. Tony had quickly learned that Lucian knew of several vampires far older than beloved Jesus of Nazareth (though whether he believed him that was entire different story) but the conversation had continued. After all, the bible did say Jesus spoke "whoever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day." And Jesus had died, and then resurrected. Tony at that time thought the entire thing near blasphemous even as he spoke of seeing the vampire's point.   
  
He turned back to look at Stefanie as she leaned for the offerings of peace (after a quick look at the elderly couple to ensure they didn't have too much curious interest; they didn't). Her own words seem to calm him more, not his heart, that he had under control, but rather everything else. After what happened with Marcel, he didn't think he would be seeing Stefanie for days, maybe even weeks.

"I thought you wouldn't want anything to do with me." He voiced his fear, without calling it a fear for he still had some sort of ego left.

|Tony|

It was understandable that he thought that way. And...not just because it was a fair summary of what she had shouted at him that night (night, not day, because that day had been perfect and he'd declared it over rather just in time). Her eyes, icy-blue flick from where he had a hand curled on the pew, to the untouched hymnal (evidently she wasn't the only one who knew the songs), then back at his own eyes. For a moment, she didn't think about anything else - his eyes had that effect on her. Though it was true she had met his gaze on and off all morning now--true that Tony had searched hers to find the truth, but for one blinding hot moment she thought it was the first moment -she'd- really met his gaze since they were in Rome. A literal lifetime ago (two).

"I didn't think I would either."  
  
That was why it was fair. According to all logic, why on Earth or in Heaven would she willingly want anything to do with him, when he arguably was the reason her brother died? (As much as she herself was...maybe that was why). She knew, looking in his gaze, and considering their location - she should tell him she forgave him now. That was what they were do, right? Find forgiveness for their sins? Let John the Baptist, well, baptize them? Her throat was too hot and dry to consider it further than that because just...Stefanie wasn't feeling all that forgiving. He could ask God for that (just as she was doing, just as she has to do). And she didn't lie to him anymore than Tony lied to her.  
  
But she could still tell him the truth, and she does it small, quiet, without looking away, "I'm glad I was wrong."  
  
Just those few words and then she was back to looking forward, listening to the litany of the eucharist begin and thinking with peculiar amusement that it suddenly kind of sounded to her like the priest might as well have been a vampire himself. ...unfortunately, that was sort of becoming a bit...problematic. How had she never noticed how often the eucharist mentioned the "blood" of Christ? This could be like the most sinful, and entertaining drinking game ever. Her fingers clenched around the hymnal and she looked down quickly, trying to picture something else, anything else -- okay, well, she had said anything, and it -was- Tony sitting beside her and she looks up hooded and shielded in her eyelashes to consider him, and remember the way he looked in Rome. Of course that was just going to give birth to another want, but it was better than breaking down into tears for Marcel or Hans -- and certainly better than eating those in the pew with them.  
  
This couple seemed adorable, after all.  
  
Her throat was scratchy, and she rubs at it irritably, trying not to listen to anything now, anything at all. Look, there were six letters in hymnal. What typeface was that? It was common in her magazine spread. A palatino, perhaps? No, it was italicized (like Tony was), it had a little more space (which she needs, why was she scooting closer to Tony again?) and was lighter (well, if that wasn't a metaphor for desires, she didn't know what was anymore) -- and fuck, this wasn't working.  
  
When they were asked to kneel, Stefanie jams her folded fingers together and looks over the pew. She knew if she'd been less stubborn she wouldn't be here, but on the other hand...she wanted to prove to herself as much as to Tony that yes, hell, she could do this. There were certainly discussions and lessons to be had -- certainly arguments to be had out, she could almost taste that in the air Tony was breathing whenever his thoughts clearly turned to his father (it had to be Remington that would falter the heart rate he'd steadied on her request, and even then, she was amazed how well he had that mastered once more.)   
  
Right now, there was prayer, and prayer always had helped her, she didn't see one good reason it shouldn't now. She murmurs them under her breath,

"Christ has died, christ has risen, christ will come again."

|Tony|

As far as he knew, there wasn't a perfectly manicured hand curling around his heart and squeezing obscenely with every word Stefanie spoke of that simple sentence, but that was what it had felt like for him. Didn't matter that he had already heard her own voice yell at him not to touch her, to leave her alone, that she never wanted to see his face again, the brief reminder was enough to bring back phantom pains.   
  
They faded quickly, but at the same time not quickly enough, as she expressed that she was glad that she had been wrong. She didn't give him time to react or gauge her own reaction for she quickly looked forward again. Nevertheless, it didn't stop a small smile from flickering on his face for the briefest of moments as he whispered, "No gladder than I"

That was the end of that.  
  
But not the end of the sermon which seemed to go on forever today. Then again, when you had a newborn vampire next to you who had already declared she was hungry, it tended to slow down time, especially knowing he was the one in charge of holding her back. He just thanked God (and he did, when they knelt and prayed) that no little kids were picking at scabs and that no one caught a splinter in their leg. Newborns were so sensitive to even the faintest whiff. And professionally stubborn or not, Stef was no Mary-Sue Bella Swan. She'd snap, likely more than once, likely already had.  
  
He almost started singing again when the ceremony was over, and they were the first ones out of there, moving quicker than they should have for keeping up appearances but it was a necessity.

"Congratulations, Darla. You've made it through. Time for lunch."


	11. Touche.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just found you holding a fridge full of blood's door open and you're asking me about Stefanie?
> 
> You've had me drink blood from your own vein, and you're asking me about a fridge of it?"

**Daniella:** Aha! Found it. *Her hand smacks down on the rune and she pulls back, watching as the door materializes.* Finallyyy--*she hums under her breath, pulling the fake candle to open the door,* I do hope you realize, Olivier D'Grey, *walking down the steps,* I am totally calling this house the Haunted Mansion from now on--be prepared for Eddie Murphy and a gigantic green crystal ball to--what, are you doing?  
  
 **Olivier:** *He had been chuckling to himself, and now he looks up, his hand on the fridge door,* Afternoon to you too.  
  
 **Daniella:** I got your call.  
  
 **Olivier:** I surmised. *He closes the fridge door, and leans against it.* Have you seen Stefanie?  
  
 **Daniella:** I--*bewildered, her nose wrinkles up,* okay hold on, I just found you holding a fridge door with blood in it, and you're asking me about Stefanie?  
  
 **Olivier:** You've had me drink blood from your vein *lips flick up as hers does,* and you're asking me about a fridge of it?  
  
 **Daniella:** ..touche, cheri.  
  
 **Olivier:** Grazie, cara.  
  
 **Daniella:** The thing is I know where my blood has been--  
  
  **Olivier:** Dani, it's important.  
  
 **Daniella:** Yes, I would think secretly hording blood is--  
  
  **Olivier:** About Stefanie.  
  
 **Daniella:** *She breathes out. Putting her hand in her back mini-skirt pocket and then shakes her head.* I talked to her yesterday...I assumed she was going to be at Mass and then church all day today because--I mean, Marcel...  
  
 **Olivier:** *He folds his arms on his chest, nodding once with a furrowed brow.* ...did she seem...off?  
  
 **Daniella:** ...she saw her brother die, Olivier, yeah she seemed a little down.  
  
 **Olivier:** *He breathes out, gripping his own forearm.* Look, just-  
  
 **Daniella:** *Immediately much more seriously, her face having flinched as if hit with a pillow,* Sorry...sensitivity isn't my strong suit. *Quietly,* What happened?  
  
 **Olivier:** She's staying here.  
  
 **Daniella:** *Startled,* She is?  
  
 **Olivier:** Yeah, she just--she just marched in, *gestures with his hand, and slaps down on his forearm,* Little after noon, and then...barely looked at us, just, crashed in her room.  
  
 **Daniella:** She's staying with you?  
  
 **Olivier:** *Nods.*  
  
 **Daniella:** But I mean. I thought. After Tony...  
  
 **Olivier:** After Tony? *His voice sharpens.*  
  
 **Daniella:** Easy, capo. *Her lips flick.*  
  
 **Olivier:** *He smirks, small.*  
  
 **Daniella:** I just thought she'd want space.  
  
 **Olivier:** *exhales, nodding and flicking his eyebrows as if to indicate he felt the exact same way, before he undoes the crossed arms and says simply,* Right, well, I did too. And I believe I just figured out why. *He pats the fridge beneath him.*  
  
 **Daniella:** *Looks at the closed lid, and then looks up at him slowly,* ...sorry I don't have your brainpower Elijah, but I seem to be missing a piece of information here to make the final leap.  
  
 **Olivier:** Allow me to provide it then, Katerina. *His head cocks and he smirks,* There were fifteen bags.  
  
 **Daniella:** Right, you know we're not done talking about that either--  
  
 **Olivier:** Now there's thirteen.  
  
 **Daniella:** \--because I want to know where you got fifte--pardon moi?  
  
 **Olivier:** There's thirteen.  
  
 **Daniella:** Thirteen. Unlucky.  
  
 **Olivier:** The irony abounds.  
  
 **Daniella:** *Breathless, eyes darting from him to the fridge and back.* You think that Stefanie...  
  
 **Olivier:** Well, it wasn't me.  
  
 **Daniella:** *Drily,* As you pointed out, you have another, more preferable source.  
  
 **Olivier:** *The smirk on his lips only widens, as he rolls a shoulder,* I have always liked something a little...warmer.  
  
 **Daniella:** Babe, I'm volcanic hot and you know it.  
  
 **Olivier:** *His throat revolves.*  
  
 **Daniella:** *Noticing this, she clears her own and hops off the last step, now with both hands on her hips as she stalks. She arches an eyebrow as she regards the closed fridge like it would give her more answers. Asking slowly,* And you're...sure it wasn't...your brother?  
  
 **Olivier:** Quite. *Nods shortly, still keeping his position tense and focusing himself back to the moment at hand.*  
  
 **Daniella:** *Warily, looking sideways at him,* ...how?  
  
 **Olivier:** Because if it was Tony, there wouldn't be even one left.  
  
 **Daniella:** *He said it so matter of fact that she didn't really know at first how to express that it felt as if he'd just hit her with another pillow. Right, cause, Tony couldn't stop. Her face did a pretty good job of expressing the pillow-smack, thank God.*  
  
 **Olivier:** *Just flicks his smirk up at her, ignoring the pit in his stomach at his own words.*    
  
 **Daniella:** *Quietly,* When you asked if Stefanie seemed off...  
  
 **Olivier:** *He nods immediately, amused only with the ease of which she cottons on.* Stefanie was asleep when I went to her room yesterday...the shades were all drawn, even the ones on the bed. I...broke, the door handle before I realized it, because she'd evidently barricaded herself in...and there was...there was just something even when she first arrived, the way she moved...and she had no bruises, when I distinctly remembered there being a fair few from the fight, and even her voice was kind of...  
  
 **Daniella:** Mary fucking magdelena.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Tiny pause, distracted by his own amusement at her phrasing. He gestures at her and nods.*  
  
 **Daniella:** You think she...how would she have...  
  
 **Olivier:** I don't know. *Hand slapping his thigh and echoes quietly, eyes clouded for a second.* I don't know if it was intentional or done to her. I do, know someone who might know.  
  
 **Daniella:** Why would sh--you do!? *Her head comes back up.* Who?  
  
 **Olivier:** Her name's Chantel. She was turned by the same bastard who turned Dad.  
  
 **Daniella:** *Nope. Still not used to Remington being called Dad.*  
  
 **Olivier:** *He grits his back teeth.* And he, is back in town for the first time in...years.  
  
 **Daniella:** *She breathes out in a long-winded French curse.* Oh God, Stef.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Still on a low throat,* If he targeted her--*there's a low rumble of a growl.*  
  
 **Daniella:** *Wrinkles her nose,* Hold on. *Abruptly,* Chantel. She told me that name.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Sidetracked, he nods absently, waving off,* Oh, yeah well they work together -  
  
 **Daniella:** No. I mean, she mentioned that--you and her--*she arches an eyebrow at him slowly, smirk small.*  
  
 **Olivier:** ....ah. *He snorts, and shrugs, smirking.* Well, yes, that was--*whistles* years ago.  
  
 **Daniella:** *Her arms on her chest and she 'mhmmms,* swaying on the stilettos.*  
  
 **Olivier:** *Immediately looking as if he was hit the one pillow-struck, he clears his throat as his face rearranges appropriately apologetic.* Daniella, cheri, *he steps forward to take her forearms,* I swear, that-  
  
 **Daniella:** *Whacking his chest at the "i swear" and rolls her eyes, but she looks visibly pleased--for a moment, anyway.* Oh saaaaave it we have a bigger--issue, we...have to find Stefanie.

 **Olivier:** *He grins, lets her push him away, says easily,* ...it's half until noon.

 **Daniella:** Congratulations. You can read a clock.

 **Olivier:** You did complain I was being too omniscient--thought we should be on more even footing.

 **Daniella:** *Mouthing 'oh haha' she says firmly,* You still think she's at Mass.

 **Olivier:** *He nods firmly, saying easily still,* Likely as not, with my brother.

 **Daniella:** Your church too?

 **Olivier:** *Nods absently, exhaling as he thinks this through; it made sense that Stefanie would have come to the manor. They were maybe the only people who could explain to her...everything that was happening to her. So why hadn't she...told them?*

 **Daniella:** *Firmly,* I'll drive.

 **Olivier:** *He looks immediately at her outfit: the mini-skirt, leggings  and leather.* Er-

 **Daniella:** I don't have to go -in- the church. *lips flick as she gestures with her head.* And you can tell me where the blood came from on the way.

 **Olivier:** *Amazed and amused she went back there, he finally brings his gaze back to hers and nods.* A hospital. The nearest. I got it...

 **Daniella:** *fills in his hesitatence with a nod* ...in case Tony did need it.


	12. Performance.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You never miss a cue, love. A born starlet.
> 
> (Even more so in death.)

| Stefanie |

Had she actually a need to breathe, she would have muttered some form of 'woah' as Tony 'escorted' her out. Or did she do that? She wasn't sure how fast she was moving anymore; just that the wind from their retreat had pricked the tears on her cheeks. Then the sun burned them away in a flash, leaving the porcelain skin rosy with a warmth she relished. All her prayers had moved her to them (or maybe it was constantly thinking of Marcel), but they were gone - and as her hunger was rising, nothing mattered. Her smile widens at Tony's remark. Stef locks her hands behind her back before looking back at him.

"From Buffy to Darla, hm?"  
  
They were around the corner of the church, but she still could hear the passersby, the exiting congregation -- so she focuses her gaze strictly on Tony's. It was easy. God, his eyes were so blue. Sparkling in the sunlight. She leans closer now to hiss in his ear, "I still prefer Mistress," she murmurs that, distracted by a vein suddenly throbbing in his neck,

"It's still me, Antonio."

She would not think about her own double meaning.

| Tony |

From hunter to vampire. How low the mighty have fallen. Though that seemed unnecessarily cruel and particularly prejudice and/or hypocritical of him so he kept his remark to himself.  
  
He didn't know what to think about Stefanie so close to his neck now, though only a few days ago (he could barely comprehend how decades hadn't passed by) he would have relished the breath on the shell before a tongue would flick against the skin of the back of his ear. Knowing now that two sharp fangs could come out and sink into his neck left him wary, though her words worked to dissolve that almost instantly.  
  
He leaned back and tilted his head to look at her again, the smirk that appeared over the word 'mistress' was still on his face. Still her, he repeated to himself, he really hoped so.

"Still you, just much more able to rip out of my throat via fangs and/or bare hands."

| Stefanie |

"Mm," she was licking her bottom lip, eyes still on where she could see as if through the steady thrum of his pulse, so much more alive than her own. Her lashes flutter as she looks at the smooth column of his throat, dancing dreamy visions of his blood across her minds eye. She wouldn't even need to bite him, she realizes as she lifts her nail to her lips; one flick of her finger and it would slice through his skin, set warm blood free she could catch on her tongue...  
  
She hadn't finished her thought aloud, she realizes. Stefanie Ricard was not ever one to let her chance to be witty go.

So she forces her eyes back to his, saying easily, "Which just means we're on more even footing now."

| Tony |

"Our sex life just got a lot more interesting."

"Interesting's one word." She responds with a head tilts, "Delectable's another."

Tony hadn't even thought about it before now when she mentioned they were equal physically. Actually, she could probably kick his ass but no need to let her know that. After all, he still had combat training and she didn't...yet. Another thing for his mental list.

He smirked again, "I wasn't kidding khaleesi, you need to feed. But given that I more likely as not would only join you instead of keep you from killing someone unnecessarily, I think it's time to call my brother."

| Stefanie + Olivier |

He was right. It would be too easy. It would be -way- too easy, and she was even more amused that his pointing out he would just join in...well, she didn't see why he had to deny himself anymore than she did, but -that- was going to be a fight for a later moment, as she hears--

"No need for that."

He was standing at the end of the alley, his hands resting comfortably in his suede grey jacket, and head tilted. He looks perfectly at ease -- even his heart would be steady, he wasn't fool enough to try feigning otherwise. Still. He..was on edge, because he'd caught the last end of Tony's remark and...knew it was likely true. Too likely.

With a dry smirk, he asks, "Stefanie, theft on a Sunday?"

Tuts behind closed teeth, taking a few steps forward, "You didn't think I wouldn't...notice, did you?" 

What had started as fear and curiosity at Olivier's abrupt appearance turns into an equally quick giggle, even though he wasn't looking at her (and when he was, it was that cold-D'Grey look above a smirk that plainly read: Get the hell away from my brother).

"...I was hungry. Did I spoil your snack?" 

Stalling walking, his gaze rests on hers a second, (he didn't want to look at Tony,) "Yes, I bet you are. So, it's true then."

And now his gaze was on Tony's, guarded - but with his eyebrows lifting.

| Tony |

Swiveling around as he heard his brother--

"Do you ever miss a cue?"

His brother answers him immediately, "Oh, I was just waiting around the corner, waiting for one of you to mention me," no, that was Daniella, who was insisting on staying in the car "in case he needed back up,' "I do enjoy the timely entrance."

Stefanie stays in place though, a bit wary now: or rather, strange instincts she'd never considered before seemed to be clicking; there was a kind of -knowledge- buzzing around her brain from tiny details (Olivier's heart was as steady as Tony's, his hands were holding something in his pocket from the look of it.) D'Grey brothers  _together_ were a team she wouldn't be able to beat. At least not yet.

"All this planning, just for me? I'm flattered, boys."

His eyebrows arched before they furrowed at the look he was throwing Stef, as if she wasn't his friend. That was bogus, until he started wondering if that's how he had been looking at Stefanie to begin with. Now he looked between the two of them, confused as to what they were talking about. Not noticing what? Stealing what? Snack? Oh. Blood.  
  
There's blood in the house?" His eyebrows rise asking, "Little warning, huh? What if I had found it?"

Tony shakes his head briefly and then pursed his lips. Yep, true.

"Don't look at me, I had no idea," she was this crazy-slash-desperate, "not until she asked if walking into the church would burn her to a crisp."

| Stefanie + Olivier |

Easily, Olivier speaks while shrugging a shoulder to Tony, "Ah. Well, it was _for_ you. Still is, what she didn't take," his smirk tightens a bit as he adds, "Hadn't bought the sippie cups yet though, *he looks back at Stefanie,* and you wouldn't have found it. Except I forgot --"

"That Hans is my brother, and knows full well where your little hiding places were as a teenager, D'Grey?"

Olivier lets out a little "ah," and nods once, his smirk wider in memory. "You were spying even as a pre-teen, then?"

"Oh, younger than that." Stefanie's words were idle; the burn in her throat was not. She breathes out, as if in a show of impatience (though she was grateful for the brief reminder that no, she could still go to Mass). Her gaze darts back to Tony, "We could share the blood bags then, try out what was so interesting a moment ago."

The curve of her eyebrow lifts.

"You'll forgive me if I don't ask for details." His hand tightens in his pocket, but he keeps his gaze on Stefanie, even as his words were light. "Stef. What happened?

And when she ignored him, they flicked to Tony: if his brother knew already, he'd tell him

"Have I accomplished something Olivier D'Grey doesn't know?" Stefanie's mouth moves to that 'oh' shape that she knew Tony had a particular affection for, and she covers it with her palm in a moment.

| Tony | 

The blood bags were for him? Great. He forgot, in the midst of a drunken stupor he had agreed to start weaning himself on drinking blood. Too late to take it back though, not when Olivier had looked so hopeful and now that they had a vampire in the house. The words 'sippie cup' was enough to make him make a face of distaste.

"Do you two always talk like this? I have to say, this is some very odd communication."  
  
Eye-roll inducing, mostly, but he refrained and try not let a shiver run down his spine at Stef's suggestion. He'd figure out whether it was from disgust or want later, and ask how she was so okay with the blood drinking so soon. Or maybe he wouldn't. Ignorance was bliss.

"She decided she was going to level the playing field. Make sure her only surviving family doesn't get killed--," he looks back to Stef, "hard to do that when you don't know where he is seeing as he left you, again."  
  
He looks away again to meet his brother's gaze, "Not to mention, in another 80 years her brother and everyone she knows will be dead or dying and she'll stay like this forever but no, this was definitely thought through."  
  
"Do I sound bitter?" He asked in feigned surprise over his own words after tilting his head, "Huh, well it's not like I don't understand 'whatever it takes', but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Oh wait," he claps his hands together, "I have no right to disapprove, nor do my opinions and feelings about this matter in the slightest so what's done is done but hey, at least I'm getting mind-blowing sex out of this, or at least I was before I started acting like a huge dick."

"Other than that no, I don't have any details, so tell me khaleesi," he turned back, "which dragon did you pretend to sell off for an eternity of immortality?"

| Olivier |

Both eyebrows were furrowing, arching, lifting, wiggling, and all out in an exhausting aerobic work-out at this point. The bitterness in brother's voice aside -- he finds his mouth gaping as confusion and irritation colors his gaze.

His throat is dry as he asks, "...you chose this?"

Only anything else he was going to ask was cut off.

| Stefanie |

She let him finish the rant. This was generous of her, she decides, and damn D'Grey brothers-fighting-together. The moment Tony looked her in the eye only to remind her of what Hans had said - what Hans had done - the little dimmer switch in her brain that was flickering between extremes of wanting flares full-throttle red. He turns back.   
  
And then she has her hand under his throat, her nails digging under his ear, back pressing to the wall.

"Just a tad bit bitter sweetie, yes." Breath abruptly hot (was that the sun too?), she leans forward, hissing as she squeezes.

"You, do not talk about Hans."

Dammi-- she timed that well, and he knew it was no coincidence that the moment she moved a dozen boxes piled tumble down, cutting off his immediate access. Tensing, he frees both hands from his pockets, taking a step forward and holding both up in a false surrender and gesture of peace, saying firmly,

"Let him go." 

Behind each bullet of a word was the promise of a stake in her heart if she didn't. Stefanie's eyes glint. 


	13. Tension.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we talked and looked away a lot, doing the dance, love...  
> My hand brushed up against yours; i left it there while i told you how i felt.
> 
> (Then we locked in a stare).

| Tony |

Stefanie's eyes glint.  
  
Tsks, tsks, tsks. Tony hissed an inhale as she reached for his throat, no doubt a technique she learned from watching Wolfie and his beloved pack (whoops that stood no longer true) because it was a go-to move for them.  
  
His lips quirk into a smirk despite the pulsing pain. She was strong, that much was true but given that she was only max two days old, he had a bit of leverage.

"I," he began, mimicking her tone, "do what I want, baby, we're not exclusive remember?"He grabbed her wrist and squeezed the pressure points to make her fingers unclench before twisting her arm and turning them in a swift movement, pressing her against the wall, his chest to her back keeping her pinned. But fuck's sake, did it take every inch of his strength. Keeping her arm twisted, he laid his chin on her shoulder. "And you were calling me rude yesterday? That hurt."  
  
"You want our help? Grabbing me by the neck? Doesn't make me feel very willing to help. And hurting me, doesn't make Oli too willing to help either."

He pushed off her, stepping away.

| Stefanie |

Tony's fingers were pressing bruises into her wrist, the church facade into her chest and his into her spine. All were bruises that would fade, quickly, but it doesn't stop her from struggling. She thinks she's enjoying it. The fact that she doesn't even get the chance to formulate and picture a response before he'd slammed her into the wall; the fact that she could hear gravelly want as much as anger in the base of his throat, the fact that she's alone now to win the right to her body. Redux, rewind, replay, remix: but it all was down to her now. And that feels good, even as she struggles against him and presses hard into the wall. Her eyes screw up when he rests his chin against her.  
  
Her head was feeling fuzzy now. Like when she'd been younger and caught the flu for two weeks. Hans had snuck her out to watch the horses, and Marcel had made her a little bracelet of flowers while they sat there in the field (until Mother found them all). But no, vampires couldn't get summer colds.  
  
(The dead can't make flower bracelets).  
  
She speaks confidently, sure and direct as she responds while he still has her tight against him. Why was it even when they struggled, it felt like he was holding her like she might break and crack? (He was the one in danger of that).

"So, we're trying this when your brother is standing right there, then"

 _That's my preview_ , Tony whispers for her ears only after her little comment.

| Olivier |

There was pride on his face that was probably undesired by Tony, but he couldn't help it. See, the thing in his pocket was a little wooden stake, and while he had no true desire to use it, he couldn't deny he would if it was the only option. Stefanie had always had a twist (no worse than his and a thousand times better) in her, a demarcation on her soul (but that was when she had one of them) -- but this? Turning herself into a vampire...  
  
And yeah, he would hate to kill her: he would never want to hurt Hans like that (or inspire his wrath, really) -- but it was Tony he knew he'd be hurting worst (despite what he said). Well. Except Stefanie of course, but, she'd already died once.  
  
(That wasn't making sense to him at this moment. Maybe because he'd never learned to see his father as dead until there was a stake in his chest and flames licking his limbs until they turned to dust).  
  
So he was grateful that Tony stepped in so quickly, took care of it himself. Grateful, and anxious. Stefanie was new, but if he could overpower her, it still made it clear exactly how much blood his brother had in the last seventy-two hours. That was the reason he'd gone hospital-lifting. (Because yeah, they'd done the right thing, a good thing, a necessary thing when they found their vengeance and freed half of France but there was a definite decrease in lack of acceptable-people-to-feed-off-of when they were all in jail or a grave).  
  
He clears his throat, says none of this, only speaks in light agreement with Tony and forgets that Stef had spoken,

"Well, I was impressed."

| Stefanie | 

Inhale, exhale - she rubs her wrist as he lets her go and swivels as fast as before, her back hitting the wall instead, her eyes stuck on Tony's.

First, "Duly noted. But you are rude, Tony. I never said I wasn't." Her eyes narrow as she points out, sucking on her bottom lip, "You like it." Her eyes flash as she looks over to Olivier, adding, "You don't want to help? Fine."

She arches an eyebrow, watching curiously as a bruise begins to fade on her wrist.

"Go on then Snow, leave - walk away, and for your sake, when the bodies start piling up in your wake - don't look back."

| Tony |

Pulling on the cuffs of his jacket and dusting his shoulders off. Now he had to work to calm down his heart again, great. Because after all, even he wasn't perfect enough to keep a steady anything while in the middle of an...altercation.  
  
And really, he could have been much meaner but he quickly realized he didn't want to be. Tony didn't want to break her wrist to show her that vulnerability hadn't gone away, that it didn't matter what you did, and how you changed yourself, it was always going to hurt and you were always going to lose people because that was life so whoopity fucking do. He didn't want to, because he wasn't as much of a dick people thought he was. And there was still guilt there, eating at him, knowing she would have never resorted to this if Marcel hadn't died to begin with.

"I had a feeling you might be." Olivier would be impressed by a show of violence, oivey.  
  
He turned back to Stefanie. "What I don't like is being hung up like last night's laundry." His eyes narrowed though his lips twisted in a smirk.

"Aw, sweetie you know how I love that you hung up my laundry though." She retorts bitterly as he'd spoken, digging in her pocket for her sunglasses again and accidentally feeling them snap between her fingers.

Those were fucking Coach, dammit.

"Just because you can overpower me, and 99% of the population now, doesn't mean you should. Throttling me for saying probably the most positive thing I've -ever- said about Wolfie, is not attractive. But you push me, I push back, that's how it works for me."  
  
He grits his back teeth together, and then exhales, adding softer, "I want to help, Stef, I said I would. We'll help you."

Now he spoke as a we, because Game of Thrones quote or not, he wouldn't be able to do this alone.

"But I'm not going to help you become just another soulless bully." His eyebrows arch as he takes a pause, adding, "Our house, our rules."

He should probably run all this by his brother at some point shouldn't he? Oops, don't care.

| Stefanie + Olivier |

"Well. Ninety-seven point-four percent." Olivier shrugs; when they both look at them he says simply, "Going off the last census data."  
  
*There was a definite pause--the tension in the air was palpable already, so thick between the three of them as Olivier's fist curled and uncurled. And then it definitely broke, if just for a second, as an incredulous smirk pulled across Stefanie's lips. Even as he could see veins popping around her wide-eyes, Olivier smirked too and shrugged, as if he hadn't made the numbers up and just adds, "See? Not as invulnerable as you'd think."  
  
"Great," she thinks she feels her own heart skip a beat now, which was quite a spectacular feat for the mostly dulled organ, "lesson number one covered." The uptick in Tony's heart was vivid, noticeable despite her best efforts not to look at his neck as she felt her eyes changing again, the blood still in her veins singing out like violins on the fucking Titanic to the salvation Tony's could bring.  
  
But that hurt. It just hurt, an she couldn't help herself (she never could) from responding quickly, "The most positive thing you've ever said about my brother is that he left me?"

| Tony |

Well that sounded like a load of bullshit. But it was definitely better than 99% so he turned away from Olivier and back towards Stef, eyebrows raised as if to speak 'see?' His brother and him were on the same train of thought here, letting Stefanie know that she wasn't immediately invincible. Especially if she tried to go against a vampire like say, Chantel.  
  
"Maybe that's inaccurate." Tony shrugs, adding dryly, "I might have complimented his shoes one day."

The point being, yes, he had a very low opinion of Hans. And he wasn't taking that back, no matter the possibility of broken limbs.

| Olivier | 

"Actually yes, that is lesson one." He took a step forward, closer to Tony -- because he was his big brother, he was never going to not do that no matter what Tony said, no matter if Tony was stronger than him right now or not. He heard the danger in Stefanie's question - one that felt and sounded all too human, so human he could almost forget (if it weren't for the shifting veins that were making him so goddamn wary).  
  
A soulless bully. What a bloody (bad pun) term. His eyebrows crinkle as he realizes suddenly: so, not only did Tony now think they had souls, but even someone who'd willingly died somehow had maintained it? He opens his mouth to sigh, and then closes it - because he realizes in an instant why Tony put it that way. He had hope. He was clinging to it (even using it as a weapon as he did then) - but it was hope, and he wasn't going to deprive his little brother of that.  
  
And besides: Tony was taking good care right now of adding everything else, and he adds simply behind him,* I agree. Not, that, *he gestures with a tense elbow, still smirking, "You've asked my input."  
  
Hissing, she rubs under her eyes and decides fuck - she couldn't keep it back anymore, she just lets her eyes change and looks at Olivier when she realizes he was the only one in that instant looking directly at them. She just shakes her head, the curls spiraling away from her and failing in the humidity, speaking quickly and breathless,

"Fine, fine, -- I don't want that anyway -- what I want is --"  
  
But she goes still as she hears someone else - probably a few seconds before even Olivier the all knowing and her lips press together as she spins on the heels.

| Tony |

Tony stifled annoyance as Olivier stepped closer to Tony, being the big overprotective brother. Hadn't he just proved that he was capable of taking care of himself? A conversation for another time. His gaze didn't drop from the capillaries popping around Stefanie's eyes, her fangs so close to popping out, even as he spoke out to his brother.

"Why do I need to when I know you'd agree anyways?"

But he had to let his gaze drop now, shaking his head and taking deep breaths to calm his heartbeat. But it wasn't the best time to bring his gaze down.

| Stefanie |

A choir director exits the door with a smile, rejoicing as such a great ceremony. And the new addition to the choir, Johanna, was doing splendidly. He had stayed back to give some pointers on her falsetto, and when the front doors were locked, he had decided to take one of the side doors.  
  
Looking sideways as he saw a group of people, he offered a smile and a wave with a started 'bonjour' that cut off as he saw the young woman's face as her eyes met his. Black and red, the veins around her eyes popping out of her face. All the color left his face as the blood rushed down. He made a cross and muttered a prayer under his breath, taking hurried steps back.

From where she stood, she imagined she looked like a porcelain doll. So delicate were the curves of her shoulders and the arch of her spine as she turns her head to him, as if listening for some secret, some explanation of the world. Thud. That, heartbeat was louder than Tony's. She still wants all three hearts- Olivier, Tony, and this man - she knows, but it was useless. (And in this case, not good to want things).  
  
There was a relief flooding her mouth as she ceased trying to hold back her teeth; she smells honey and wine, coppery polishing oil. A slow sardonic smile starts on her face, and she thinks a second before she moves, the choir director wishes he were in on the joke.


	14. Succumb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know you need this, love. To live, to survive. 
> 
> (But I can't watch).

A hand meets her chest. Smack.

(She doesn't know which D'Grey brother it was at that moment, looking down angrily with her demonic face contorting -- until she hears Olivier speaking...and not to her).  
  
"Shh."

Olivier has the man's throat. He's angry. Of course he would be angry. Just like Tony was, and not just angry, so very frustrated. He just doesn't understand; how could she want this? (How can he be filled with poison and still manage to breathe?), "Shhh, sh you're all right."

"Bad, bad, no-"

Tony felt like he was reprimanding a puppy who had just noticed a bone and was trying to run towards it. He didn't hold back Stefanie the same way he had a few nights ago. Then he had grabbed her arms from behind, held her back. The same gesture now would not have only filled him with a guilt he couldn't manage, but also would have angered Stefanie beyond the anger she already had. He put a hand to the top of her chest after stepping in front of her, pushing her back.

"Stop it, control yourself." Tony whispered in a hiss.

The repeated "bad, bad" only makes her think how often she had similarly mocked Ansel. Dark veins throb, around her eyes, above her throat. The angle where Tony pushed her back was awkward, off-kilter like her mind, his heartbeat -- but she hears him anyway. Control herself. Each little burst of effort to do just that seems to produce a gasp of pain from her red lips. The color was faded now, smudged over the lines of her lips onto her cheeks, but they'd be red again soon enough.  
  
"Shh, shhh," Olivier was ignoring them and choes that, a finger pressing to his lips, eyes locked on the mans - in that captivating, wide-wordless way of intimidating and calming at once. Holding tight, he didn't speak until his unblinking blue eyes were all the man was paying attention.

The choir director mutters he had seen the face of evil, the face of a demon as her enlarged to fine points and she started towards him. He tried to run away, only to find a hand at his throat. He spoke in hurried French, tears prickling at his eyes as he pleadeds.

"Please, don't hurt me. Please, please, have mercy, show mercy. I'm a man of God..."  
  
Lifting his finger from his mouth, Olivier's words were weighted, heavy as bricks and slow as they fell. Suggestive.

(Controlling).

"You're not afraid. You won't make a sound. You'll be fine."  
  
He could hear the heated breath behind him as Stefanie struggled (with herself or with his brother, Oli didn't know), but he doesn't release the man until he's nodded. What he said amused Stefanie ; they'll use her name in cautionary tales at Sunday school, tell little girls to take note and take heed. They'll mourn her and curse her in the same breath, but she didn't regret it.*

(She won't).

The man's pleads died out into quiet mutters and then into silence as he stares at the man's blue eyes, eventually nodding along in acquiescence as he felt fear dissipate. Olivier looked serene now, standing there between them all. It was a nice day, you know, sans the murder (possibility) and mayhem (certainty) - he took what he could get (and what he could get was nearly all). A small languid smile stretches on his face. Cruel, powerful, absolute - only too capable of making cities fall with a flick of his wrist. He studies the man he held...and then he turns as he hears Tony's warning tone.  
  
"Olivier..." Tony started, having heard his brother speak but with his back to him, to keep Stef back. Something flashes through his brother's gaze - red, a warning to stop, stay away, danger.

"She needs to feed, brother," Olivier said. His words were low in response, but certain. He knew how this went.

| Stefanie |

Tony's heart (or it might have been the man Oli held, she wasn't sure) skips the beat hers couldn't as Stefanie stills. Olivier was right - she was thrilled by the idea, eyes widening to take in brighter colors, tongue tasting air thick with promise and languishing on her tongue. She nods quickly, but feels a shudder in her spine - warring as she'd seen so many other addicts do between want and logic. How many damn brochures had she read for Hans? She tries to recite one internally, but...*   
  
"Olivier --," she starts, but it seemed pointless to say "I don't want to hurt him." (She could hear Tony's sharp voice again: _but no, clearly this was thought through_ ). So she falls silent as he cuts her off.  
  
"You do, Stef," His words were flat. He released the man who was nodding at him, but didn't move away. Not yet.

| Tony |

God fucking dammit. Yes he knew that she had to. She was a vampire now, she needed blood, or else she was going to desiccate and die. Though only if she was restrained because otherwise she would just kill until she got it. This was her life now. She wasn't like him, she couldn't live off food and ignore blood forever (even though everyone was telling otherwise).  
  
Stefanie was trying to tell him it was still her but now all he saw was things proving otherwise. He saw the glee in her eyes at the power, the want, the easiness with which she accepted that they were just going to feed off this man without his consent. How was this not like raping somebody in some ways?  
  
And he could practically feel Olivier glowing with the power rush that came from subduing that man. He pursed his lips together and then nodded.* I know. *Tony turned now to look at the man, he should see his face and saw nothing but a blank look on a blank face; his fists clenched.

"But I can't be here."  
  
"I know." Olivier's retort is rough this time. As much as he knew what they were about to do bothered Tony, he knew equally that if his brother got a whiff, the barest hint of the scent and he'd have -two- of them to deal with. Or maybe his voice was rough from the ache that thinks: this wasn't supposed to happen, we were supposed to hunt together, in the places where I know they're into it.   
  
(Or maybe it was just plainly: It was just supposed to be us two.)   
  
He clears his throat, tries again, "Daniella's in your car. Promising me a lecture on feminism, and you one on your music collection -- let me know if you want to swap."

Tony's eyebrows arched, "My ca- if she switched any station or so much as changed a thermostat setting--," he smirked, it was easy to focus on that, he realized, then what was going to happen. He breathed in and out again, nodding at Olivier when he finally looked up. He could trust his brother with Stef, Tony just couldn't trust him not to enjoy it. There was a smaller voice in the back of his mind yelling 'so what if he does?' Tony was pretty much ignoring this voice.

| Olivier | 

Olivier wasn't looking at Stefanie yet; but still at the man, determined to keep eye-contact as much as possible in case he needed to strengthen the bond. His own pose was casual, arrogant - and as long as he wasn't looking at his brother, or remembering that he knew Stefanie as an eight year old girl who could never stop smiling, then there was no devastation on his face. There's gravel in his tone as he speaks a small addition.

"We'll meet you at home."  
  
For a second, he does lift his gaze to meet his brothers, because even if there was small hope of consoling him (no chance of that), he had to try. Even if it was just an eyebrows lift and stare, he says plainly in that second: I'm not going to let her kill him.  
  
Olivier thinks afterwards maybe that was worse; to think he was going to let her feed from him and then heal him, make him forget -- was in utter control of the situation, and still was going to let it happen.  
  
Now, he just waits until his brother's retreating and then turns to Stefanie. He steels himself, swallowing a breath of glass, but his eyes were filled with kindness.  
  
Tony turned to look back at Stefanie, offering her a smirk too before adding dryly,

"Try not to stain the sweater, you look good in it."

| Stefanie | 

Stefanie couldn't look at Tony, she realized abruptly. As if she were capable of focusing on anything but the loud, appetizing, rushing from the man's jittery heart. She zeroes in on it, the cacophony of scraping, whirring, beating, throbbing, crackling -noise- around her. It was sick, but she couldn't help but think: it was easier to think about it, than Tony. The look on his face when she couldn't pull her fangs back, when she was struggling to take deep gulps of oxygen and convince her brain it tasted just like the blood it wanted -- it burns.  
  
(She thinks: I just wish you didn't have to see this, and then reminds herself Tony himself had forsaken the practice of desire).   
  
And then he says she looks good in the sweater. She can't speak a word of response (if she opens her mouth, she was leaping forward), but it surprises her enough -- plays out the fantasy enough in her mind that she gets the reprieve she needs. Long enough for him to leave, long enough for her to watch his retreat as she feels a feral call to abandon inhibition and just succumb.  
  
Her blue eyes suffused crimson, her mouth opens -- and then Olivier has her again, and she nearly bites him instead.   
  
She swivels, flitting between Olivier's eyes and the warm...throbbing she could already taste -- like a hummingbird when he has both her arms instead. He meets her wild gaze, squeezing tightly (how damn strong were these boys?) and says slowly, "Stefanie. You need to think -- wait. Feel this, feel this exhilaration, this rush -- and then control it."   
  
Stefanie nods up and down, but she can't stop looking at the man and knew she was trembling all over, jittery and frenzied, desperate now. Olivier lets go, but not until he's given her the one piece of advice she thinks did affect her directly: bite -carefully-, and it will hurt less for the man, -and she'll get more blood-.   
  
Pinpoint precision then, she sinks fangs deep into flesh before he's said another word. It was beautiful, overwhelming, and honestly -- weird. Very weird. Every instinct in her sings, but it wasn't like she didn't know what she was doing: ripping into a man's jugular with teeth inhumanly sharp to suck life from him, sustain herself on it instead. Very weird.  
  
Yet just as before...why did it taste so...good?  Blood slides down her throat, some sweet mixture of melted chocolate, wine -- honey, she thinks, her eyes shut. Honey, and that makes sense, because she'd first had to give a bee sting.  
  
Olivier hovers at her side, looking torn between helping and ripping this heavenly, sinful hell, away to dive in himself, but she was never good at sharing.  
  
He might have said her name but she will not to hear it. She was busy.   
  
(And the latent sorrow in his voice might be worse than a stake). 


	15. Prodigal.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I swear I'm not running from you, love. I'm running towards myself.  
> (Wherever the fuck that is).

Tony couldn't offer good luck, or anything other than a whispered 'see you later' before he was walking past the man and his brother, and out of the alley into the parking lot where the sunlight was hoping to clear away some of the darkness from his thoughts and where Miss Daniella Faye was expectedly waiting- in the driver's seat?  
  
"Nope." He was shaking his head and wagging his fingers at her as he walked towards the car. Reaching it, he opened the door and then tilted his head, "Nuh uh. Scoot. No one drives this car but me. We're in a monogamous relationship, me and this baby. So come on," he snaps his fingers.

 

| Daniella |

It was freezing. Okay yes, she was in a skirt and this jacket was more on the fashionable side than actually-providing-body-heat side, and yeah, it was December in Paris but still. She didn't understand why it was so cold.  
  
Oli had warned her about touching the thermostat (well rather, everything), but then seemed to understand -her- warning gaze if he said for her to do one more thing. Yes, okay fine. She understood: human, and because she didn't want to hurt Stefanie, she shouldn't come with.  (He was still lucky he made the command sound so hot).  
  
When Tony arrived she just was filing her nails anyway, and had the music on. She wasn't surprised by how jittery he seemed, but she offers a little smirk anyway, tapping her stiletto as he snaps his fingers She sighs (mostly for show) and scoots, pointing and saying.

"Just because I love you. And because your car had better music than Oli's. But seriously baby, where's the Bruce?" She pulls the CDs out. "How do you not have Thunder Road in a Camaro?"  
  
"Because I hardly use CD's anymore? They're not vintage enough to keep." He grabbed his iPod out of his back pocket and tossed it over to her before sliding in the driver's seat. "Which is why I installed an mp3 port, a cheap ass one," he gestured to the fact it was run through the cigarette socket, "but it works."  
  
Speaking of cigarettes, he opened a little compartment and took his emergency box out. "And I prefer Black Sabbath. Paranoid? Oooh, yes.

Sticking one between his lips, he held the box out to Dani to see if she wanted one.  
  
"Fair point." Catching the little mp3 player, her lips flick."Nano. Retro. Though I do hear the audio quality difference on those records Oli has, just don't tell him that." She winks, exaggerated and comically over-large. Her eyes were shadowed purple and black to match her violet shirt, and she murmurs a soft "thanks" as he offers the cigarette.  
  
Everything in moderation was the key, she knew (how many times had she told Dylan that anyway? Or heard Noah reminding his twin that?) -- so she wasn't going to deny a cigarette even if she would prefer a cosmo. Frankly, she wanted a cosmo with Stef, but..well, there in lies the problem.

"You know how I do. *He was far more old school- he got his zippo lighter out of another pocket, flicking it on and bringing it up to light the cigarette. Then he showed it off to Dani. "I got this in Vegas, look, J.T. autographed it."  
  
He took in a heavy drag and then flicked the ashes out of the car before taking his keys out and starting the car."Come on, we'll meet them back at the manor, she's feeding."

Her thumb flicks under the edge of the cit, fire appearing off it's tip and lighting it. Only after a drag, which she blew out the window, and then held outside the car with her wrist hanging there, does she chuckle. Her palm was flat as Tony offered the lighter, the other preoccupied with drawing smoke circles in the chilled air, but she takes it with a smirk, surveying the signature. "Sick."

She comments idly, running her finger over the edge of it to flick the flame on and off. The orange glow reflects under her violet-shadowed eyes and she stays perfectly still as she hears Tony. Her teeth dig into her bottom lip (yes she saw the irony) and she looks back out the window quickly. It was true, then. Stefanie turned. If she was feeding, and Tony couldn't be near her...well, then Stefanie had become a mother fucki--Hell.

Daniella hums the tune (if one could hum Black Sabbath), _"I can't see the thing that make true happiness, I must be blind, make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh, and I will cry..."_  
  
She trailed off, cigarette poised to her lips, feeling like a rocker stuck in a film noir that had decided to go horror. Huh. Tilting her head, she asked passing casual, "Why does it feel like you're trying to tell me something with that song?"

Only then does she curve her eyebrow up at him.

Tony eased out of the parking space and then out of the parking altogether, not looking back as he kept driving forward. "Because you love to psychoanalyze me. I should have just told you I prefer Abba. Psychoanalyze me like the song ' _Fernando_ '."

"I psychoanalyze everybody I care about babe, it's a curse and a gift."

The words were taut. She'd thought the hits were supposed to stop coming already. Turning her head and petting the edge of the felt-tip and casting ash onto the curb as he starts to drive away, Daniella tenses.

"I'm flattered then." She had already admitted to him that she cared about him though, and truthfully he cared about her the same way which was why this dark-magic, addict-brother, secret-keeping was leaving his brain ransacked. Now there was Stefanie as a vampire on top of it. Stefanie who had chosen to become a vampire...and he hadn't for one moment considered the alternative, that she was attacked. What did that say about him? What did that say about what he thought of her? Dani would only be happy to tell him if he told her, but he couldn't really handle much deep insight into his soul without a shot of whiskey to ease the pain.

He smirks and then takes another long drag, exhaling sideways and driving with one hand.  
  
"Go ahead, start asking, I know you're dying to."

The smoke in her lungs seems to congeal, but she turns into chuckles to clear her throat, amused as ever with Tony's remark. "Yeah, well," she cocks her head, "you don't really think I could refrain from commenting? Her free hand rubs over her heart, thinking it was pounding extra hard now. "I just."  
  
Side-eying him, "You hate vampires. Don't you?"  
  
"Yeah, I do. I think they're soulless demons who get off on showing off how big and tough they all are. Now am I biased? Yes, I've never met a vampire who wasn't friends with Remington, so that already means lowest of the low."  
  
He takes another drag before rounding a corner, tapping the ashes out again. He hissed and then he just slams his free hand on top of the wheel. "Fuck this. I had one good thing going." He takes another heavy inhale and then tosses the butt out the window, something he knows he'll regret later. He detests littering.

"This, Dani, is why we can't have nice things."  
  
Hell. Damn, she could see in the mirror as Tony spoke, it was with that motherly infinite-loving patience look that she listened. Quickly taking another drag so he didn't feel patronized, she screws her nose up, pinches the edges of it with the hand that still balanced the cigarette. And exhaled. Heavily.  
  
"Yeah, well, you can't really be biased though by having legitimate experiences." She points out, carefully she thinks, adding, "Daddy dearest still _counts_." Was it totally weird that she considered it easier to talk about Oli's father with his brother, than with Oli himself? It was just. She knew because she could see it-- he was conflicted now, but still, that lingering respect...it irks her.  
  
Any other thoughts were discarded as he slams the wheel and she startles, looking over, grateful they were at a stop. Lightly, "Okay, baby I agree, but let's not crash your fantastic car here, mm?"

"Yeah." He exhaled, pursing his lips together, mindlessly agreeing now because otherwise he was sure he was going to just start wincing. There was just something about Daniella though, something that made him just want to divulge so easily. But now all he could think about was what Olivier had said, about how much they really knew about Dani. Personally, he wasn't freaking out about it as much as his brother but call it, ha, genetics, that he couldn't help but be wary.  
  
And at the same time, fuck it. He needed to talk and the goddess of the universe was not available at the moment. "I would die, before I let this car crash. This is my baby."

"Your baby?" Daniella remarks idly, tilting her head, "Ahh, I see. Well, I would lie and say it's cute like you're supposed to but," she eyes the homemade cigarette-lighter, the edges of the camaro's mirrors, the seats and just says simply, "...it's hot, honestly. Though again. Very much the antique bad boy's car."

Tony smirks, and then nods.* Thank you. *To hear any part of this car described as 'cute', even Tony's attachment to it, would hurt more than any blow Dani had taken to his ego and masculinity and she had hit him quite a few times.

She wasn't entirely sure what "this" was; what meant he couldn't have nice things? Stefanie's vampirism was kind of specific. Unless he had this past she didn't know about of people turning into vampires on him (well besides his father and brother obviously); but...far as she was aware? Tony hadn't ever been this ... close, to someone. Dammit, Stef, what happened?  
  
Breathing out, she take her hand back from his shoulder and says softer, but a bit lightly, "...though come on, be fair. You looove making people uncomfortable, Tony."  
  
It was the 'soulless' part of that description she, personally, had an issue with. She'd have to ask Amalie.  
  
He exhaled and quickly grabbed another cigarette, lit it, and inhaled. He was about to continue talking but her comment gave him pause. He turned to look at her quickly, "What? Me? Oh come on, like how?"  
  
She winks tapping the cig against the window and breathing out again, trying to focus. The question - and apparent shock (really) on Tony's face stills her anyways, and she forgets what she was about to say. An eyebrow cocks.

"Well, not that I felt uncomfortable - since, I didn't - but you did repeatedly ask me to get into bed with you." Her lips flick.* And you sing constantly - and always have _some_ witty line to say back."

The light turns green and they're off again, his eyebrows arching as she explained herself. Really? That made people uncomfortable, his constant singing? His witty remarks? Well, no wonder he didn't have any friends. He smirks again before reminding her, "Yeah but I knew you weren't going to." Did he? Sober him would have known, sober him did know that actually. Drunk him would have probably felt lonely as fuck and just wanted someone there. Drunk him was embarrassing.

"I know. Brother's girl, and all." She waves it off, wondering idly the uh - actual particulars of that. What she meant was simple: Tony had felt safe enough with her (to hit on her, to drunk sext her, to let her help him directly into bed). Still, she could see she'd made him uncomfortable (oh the irony) and so she says lighter first, "Hey, Tony, I quite enjoyed it."  
  
She wiggles an eyebrow, words matter of fact. "I like making people uncomfortable too."

It wasn't really that. She liked knowing that she'd mattered enough to someone that they can't help but react and -- look. There was passion, and then there was Daniella Faye passion. Dragging her free hand back to her hair to hold it back as the wind caught up with his speeding away she chuckles.  
  
"Plus, hey, must be difficult. You know, being unable to turn it off," she gestures over him, "being so goddamn irresistible all the time. If you want to exude all that excess instinctual sexuality around me, I'm certainly not complaining."

She was...okay half serious, generously: mostly she just wanted to tease him and make him smile. But nope, she was never going to be ashamed for enjoying a hot view anymore than she'd want Oli to be ashamed of the same.

"Who doesn't enjoy me trying to get them into my bed?" He grins and chuckles as she admits that she likes to make people uncomfortable too. Now that he could more readily believe. Daniella was more of a power-freak than he was. And if he didn't believe that before the black magic bomb was dropped, he believed it now.  
  
He knew that Daniella had said that if he wanted to keep trying to make her uncomfortable with his blatant sexuality, he should, but all he heard was that he was free to be himself with her. It was those pesky double entendres he had learned to pick up from years of experience. At least this hidden message was positive.  
  
Lightly, "Hey, I'm not saying this is a bad thing Tonio, it's definitely part of your charm." She wiggles both eyebrows, teasing, "Endearing. You get under people's skin, you make an impression." She shrugs, and then adds, "And this is very off the point. Which you also do."  
  
Her head tilts and she asks simply, "What were you about to say about Stefanie?"  
  
It still didn't sit right with him though, that she described it that way: that he enjoyed making people uncomfortable, getting under their skins, being remembered, making an impression. It sounded too familiar for comfort to Tony. As she remarked that he got them off topic as was typical of him, he had to chuckle, though it quickly turned bitter.  
  
"I was going to comment on the fact that clearly, I go for the psychotic ones." No, not really, given that he felt more guilt now than before. Gritting his teeth, he took a quick drag before answering quieter, "She chose it, Dani. Said it's the only way to help her brother stay alive. The only way she'll be strong enough to make sure no one else dies on her.  
  
Newsflash, people die every day! It's part of human life, you can't stop it, and she's already dead." He gritted his teeth again.

His chuckle dies off in her ears and she stills again, a small frown on her lips. Somehow, she'd thought the same thing: that it was more likely for Stefanie to have chosen it. Or rather, if she'd been hiding it in the manor, sneaking around to find blood bags as opposed to showing up tearfully and bloody -- it wasn't likely she'd been attacked. Daniella bites her lip.  
  
That was the second time that Tony had said to her "newsflash, people die", and the second time she had the weird feeling it meant something more...weighted to him. Nodding slowly as she agrees, she takes the moment to think and let him focus on driving.  
  
"Yup." She agreed with that easily. "Though put another way you could say you went for the person who would die, did die, for her brother."

"So I went for a version of myself with breasts." He snorts, "Figures."

"I have been told you enjoy mirrors." It's idle and immediate, her response to his "figures", keeping her eyes on the mirror beside her. Warning: Objects In The Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear. It was in English. Huh. His car was from the states then. That made sense as honestly, a legitimate camaro in France was strange - but now she was curious as to why (and how!) he had brought a car back with him. She was stubbornly not thinking about the clear metaphor of the moment for her: the fact that even she appeared small in the mirror than she was by his side.  
  
Gritting her teeth too, she focuses for a few minutes only on the drive. The cigarette was in danger of flying from her hand. She gave her hair up for a lost cause to the wind's tyranny. The city at peace was as alarming a sight as she could think of in a long time.  
  
"If she's feeding. Oli's with her?"

Tony kept driving in silence, taking drags from the cigarrette until there was nothing left. He threw the second butt out the window too.

"Yeah, teaching her, restraining her and restraining himself. Because he needed another reason to think he's supreme master of all." He snorts and shakes his head. "She says she's still the same person, how can she be the same person after she chose to die? Knowing what it meant? She can't be the same person, because she isn't, she's a vampire now. And what if-" he pauses a moment, swallowing a lump in his throat and then finishes the thought, "what if I don't like the person she is now?"  
  
Master of all. Fantastic. She knew Tony was joking, but it also .. wasn't a joke, and while she was grateful if it meant that Stefanie was getting helped...her heart was skipping around. Her head twists at the remark, feeling her heart thud, clench as if blasted by an icy cold wind. She'd roll up the window, but she wasn't ready to part with the cigarette. Her words were quiet.  
  
"Well, I can't speak for her. But I know if it were me, well. I think the Stefanie we both knew died when Marcel did, Tony. Which, btw," she waves her hand through the air to punctuate the words, "not your fault. Not remotely. Not that Oli told me the specifics, but Marcel was taken for retribution against Hans, right?"  
  
Her eyebrow arches. "And really, wouldn't they have wanted to hurt - to kill, Stef, too? So," she shrugs it away, taking another drag before finishing her thought, " her deciding this...she wants to be the same person to you, probably, but I don't think she wants to be the same person at all. That person lost both brothers. That person was helpless to stop it, anymore than she was able to stop Hans from killing their father, or Ansel from Colette, or both of them together playing at that damned Gala."  
  
Her exhale was hot, and she brings the cigarette back into the car, putting it out on the palm of her hand. Her eyes glint as she licks her bottom lip, hissing at the sting. As she opens his glove compartment, looking for a napkin, she continues aloud quieter again, "But she came straight to the manor it sounds like, and -- well I don't know how she told you, but you took her to Mass? So."  
  
Ah, there was one. She clicks the glove compartment shut, rolling the napkin around the remnants of the cigarette up into a ball, and stuffing it down her jacket pocket. Then she looks back at Tony.  
  
"She's probably scared you're not going to like her anymore either." She smirks, "But then, as I said. Can't speak for her. It's just - if she wants to be taught restraint, that's not exactly overwhelmingly deciding to become a vampire at all, is it?"

"In that case, I'm right to be mourning." Dani had put it correctly; the person that Stefanie was has died with Marcel. And it was that person that Tony had liked, that Tony had such great times with and who he was really starting to care for deeply. He still cared, and he would have cared even if he had just remained Wolfie's hot little sister, but she had grown to be so much more than that to him. And he'd had to watch her disappear as her brother was killed in front of her.

"Yes, you are." Her words were quiet, but firm--she made no attempt to hide them or deny his remark. Stefanie had died. The human Stef who had looked at her with such wide eyes when she said that Olivier had drank from her was laughably, ironically, gone.  
  
She pats her stinging hand on her thigh and finishes the thought easily, "And you aren't alone in mourning her." If it weren't distinctly macabre (oh who was she kidding?) she would have suggested a funeral. Maybe when they were all less on edge, because (she rubs under her eye hurriedly seeing the look on Tony's face)-- they needed to say goodbye.

"Misery adores company. We'll open a bottle to commemorate." He would have opened a bottle anyways, but now he could give it a purpose and it wouldn't feel quite so empty. Hopefully, that was, because he knew that no matter what it would all feel still just a bit hollow.

"Sounds like a plan I could get on board with, yeah." Smirking idly (because she has to) as she sees the countryside speeding by, her tone immediately softens while she looks back at him. "Tony. Do you want to do that at the house? Or do you want to go somewhere else? Because I have a bottle. She rummages in her black Coach bag to bring it out--the little quarter-sized whiskey. Her eyes were full and round, like steel that had blunted from wear and tear. Tony hated the D'Grey manor too (well, as much as he loved some aspects of it: predominantly a gigantic hole in the wall). It just felt like...if he wanted to give Stefanie a proper farewell, it wasn't at that house.

He looked sideways at her now, examining the bottle she had in her hands and then nodded, idle smirk on his face. "Leave it to you to always come prepared. Emergency bottle?" Irene had explained the concept to him, then again she seemed to prefer 'emergency stash' rather than just a simple bottle.  
  
So he quickly changed lanes and got off a few exits before the right one, knowing where to go. Daniella was right, it wasn't at the house.  



	16. Memorial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die."

Tony knew Daniella spoke sense, that it wasn't his fault because he wasn't the one who killed Marcel but he could have done something about it. Sure, it would have risked Stefanie's life, but he could have done something. It was the fact that he had known such was true and then decided to save Stefanie instead that haunted him. That could be that selfish.  
  
The mention of Ansel, even for the briefest moments, did not help with hi s temper. It was a good thing he had already thrown out the cigarette butt at that time. But Dani hadn't, and the freak had decided to put it out on her hand. He threw her a glance and then shook his head at her, muttered 'fuh-reek' under his breath. Not that he hadn't thought of the same thing to but at least he  _healed_ instantly, especially with all the blood in his system.  
  
"Yeah, no newborn vampire wants restraint that's true..." he exhales as he gets on the highway to head out of the city. "At the same time I can't help but think that if she hadn't needed  _our_ help to get through her personally-chosen hell, she wouldn't have come back".  
  
He smirks, "After all, it wouldn't be the first time she's used me. Just the less enjoyable of the two times. And it's not as if she forgives me for holding her back, and she does, blame me Dani. She knows I blame myself, I said so, and she wasn't particularly interested in changing that by telling me otherwise. So, really, why would else would she be here if she didn't need us," he scoffed, "I'm sorry, Olivier, to help her feed and hunt?"  
  
Tony shook his head, still looking forward before he murmured through clenched teeth. "Should have never left that cave."

"It's been two days, less--forgiveness can take....a lot more than that. *The back of her mouth feels full of something hot. "I'm sorry, Tony. Although," she squeezes her hands in her lap with her words, "her using you--correct me if I'm wrong, but the first night the two of you were together was that damn gala, where you would have been looking at all this...carnage," her teeth grit, "so weren't you kind of using her too? To steady yourself?"

And it was true that it was much too early for forgiveness even if he hadn't really asked it of her. He asked it of God, He didn't really feel like forgiving him either, because Tony had been wary of asking her knowing what the answer would be. Not only that, there was still a part of him that believed Stefanie owed him no forgiveness because he'd done nothing wrong. A sentiment he could allow others to express aloud for him, but not a stand he could take on himself.  
  
"Okay fine, three times, the first time being a mutual use." Those were the simpler days, he speaks of a day riddled with death and destruction for countless of families. Ha.  
  
She arches an eyebrow. "I just don't -- know, but I think considering it was you she personally told, it seems pretty clear whose help she actually wants, Tony." Her heart skips a beat. "Maybe she wouldn't have come back so soon, or come to stay over--but...Tonio, forget what happened to Marcel for a moment. You know her better than I."  
  
"Would she just use you without caring? Now?"

"Easier said than done,"he muttered as she had told him to forget Marcel is dead. He rubbed at his forehead with his free hand and then thought of her question. " I would like to think that no she wouldn't. If Marcel were alive, if she hadn't just traded her humanity for immortality, but now? If she's determined to harden herself to become this invincible femme fatalé, who knows?"

"Aren't...newborn vampires really...emotional, though, yeah? All their human memories returning if repressed, vivid and hurt becoming desolation and what not?" Her heart skips another beat as she thinks: and everything drives back to her hunger. "I'm just thinking if...she didn't care anymore and was sans humanity entirely...then..."

The words stick in her throat. But she forced herself to say them because she thought Tony needed to hear them anyways, "If all she did was blame you, and that had become this all consuming rage, would't she attack you? I mean, would you be sitting here driving?"

Blunt. But then that was her.

"But you are driving. Maybe I'm wrong. Just seems like it's a strange thing to go to Mass and sit beside you and not care. Maybe this is why I'm not such a Godly person though, don't really get the appeal. Though hey. Stefanie clearly did and does. So there's something the same..."

She was also right (about a lot of things it seemed) about the changing. He'd heard about that. It was partly why vampires went so stone cold after, after dealing with that attack.

"And then they start losing then. The human memories go away because they didn't experience in the extreme vividness that they see everything now."

He needed another person to start making sense. This whole, having one person have all the answers, even if Daniella didn't at all, was just not going to be healthy for their relationship. The last thing he needed was dependency on someone else.

"It should hurt me a little more to hear you think I couldn't handle a newbie vamp. I trained for that, you know."

That was off topic, but it was the easiest of the things to respond to. Oh the second thing to reply to- "I'll still pray for you, babe." Not that I think he listens to me anymore, he thought. Tony was pretty sure he had lost standing with the big guy after his second broken commandment.

"Aww, bright side, okay." He nodded "I'll be flattered then." Though technically speaking he had hurt her, bad, and he didn't just mean the little arm twist and pin he had given her back in the alley. None of his relationships could be easy, it seemed.

"The bright side, sure, that. Also, because I'm not trying to insult you, Tony."

It was blunt, it was matter of fact, but it was entirely true. Tony beat himself up all the time (and especially, she knew he would over this in particular, as if he somehow could have stopped it).

Very, quietly, but still blunt she adds, "I don't know Tony. I've never dealt with this, not at all. And I've watched too many vampire movies and read too many stories to not have been influenced, though I did grow up hating Remington too. But Stefanie...if she died, and that's it, and now she's a Church-going more-durable vindictive blood-drinking bitch becoming an entirely new person, then isn't this kind of like, not even a baby's second day? Who knows? I think you do. I think we, Rene, Eliza--frankly I believe Al would kind of be helpful too, but maybe that's just because I know him better--I think she needs us to remind her of that humanity. I think acting like her rash, idiotic decision is permanently going to alienate her -- acting like because she might turn into a soulless monster, she already definitely has, then, bam. *She claps her hands together.

"Sorry for playing Macbeth, but your Lady screwed you for a self-fulfilling prophecy and something wicked this way comes."

He turned into a side road and then chuckled at her last sentence. "I hate that play."

He smirked then as she mentioned Alcott.

"No, you won't want those two in a room now. Vampires smell like a sweet poison to a wolf. Disgustingly ripe, I've heard it described. And I have smelled a wolf in the middle of too much blood, they stink of wet dog."

Oh. Right. She'd forgotten (hilarious, she'd said it was 'because she knew Al well') that he'd become a wolf. After all, she'd only known that for two...days, and considering she kept the fact his father was alive for a week from him, she couldn't really say anything but it was square now. Shivers tracing up her arms as she thinks - when had he smelt a wolf high on human blood? Or was it just..kind of a fact that he was right now?

"Yeah. Forgot he was a wolf for a second. You're right, best to keep them apart."

That oddly hurt. Why? Alcott and Stefanie hadn't, to the best of her knowledge, met. Maybe it was because that was isolating both of them when they needed people most -- but, she couldn't dwell.

"So no, probably the best of ideas to have a werewolf and a vampire together right now, especially not one she doesn't have affection for. She could probably keep herself from being violent to her brother, or her Wolfie-lover because she cares about them, and even then the hostility would be enormous, but it'd be difficult for a newborn." His lips flick, "I might sell tickets, actually. Love to see it."

He shrugged and drove in silence until the road became dirt and then kept driving for a few more minutes and then stopped, parking.

"We're here." Here being of course, the middle of nowhere, the end of the road. He opened the car door and got out, taking his coat and then tossing it over to Daniella for her to warm up. Sitting carefully on the hood of his car, he patted the spot next to him and then pointed to a tree in the distance, "See that?"

Catching his thrown jacket and smirking as she puts it on, her hand comes up, she spins around, hands up and asks, "How do I look?"

Her eyebrows wiggle as she adds, "Remind me to give this back to your or else I might steal it."

Tony instead chose to compliment how well she wore his jacket.

"Ravishing, babe, as usual. Though that's not really an incentive for me to ask for it back."

She would though, he wasn't the brother she was meant to keep clothing from after all. Watching her take the shot glasses out, he smirked at her comment and with his arms resting on his knees, he looked ahead.

Popping up on the car roof, she crosses stiletto over stiletto and plants her hands behind her. Then he pointed at a tree. Unless you're talking about a tree, then no, don't see anything, *she responds with a small smirk, untwisting the cap with one hand. The bottle she has pressed between her knee caps, her other hand digging out two (of her four) shot glasses. When she finds the first, she promptly hides that on herself again - the Martin's tavern logo was ripped at the top. So that one was reserved to Amalie. Putting the glasses down with a clink, she tilts her head at him, saying honestly,

"But I'm listening, baby."

"I call it the tree of life. I know, very original of me, considering the fact it's actually dead and no leaves grow on it anymore." He shakes his head, "This tree has seen it all- the good, the bad, the ugly. Which one should we start with?"

Listening as she poured, one hand toys with the edge of his leather, always enjoying the feel of it between her fingers. Even as she realized easily this was faux leather, thank God, and that made sense. Tony and his brother both did seem to have high regard for nature.  
  
Especially by the fact he was still just stopped at the end of a road looking at a tree and calling it now the tree of life. Mirthful herself at the jibe, she hums first the whistled-two-notes that warble between and then fall -- the opening to that Western. Then she looks up, surprised when he said the tree was dead. It looked pretty alive to her, even in the wintry grey mix of sky and brown grass. Wasn't -- didn't they just come back next season stronger than ever?

Her head tilts, now officially curious of this tree and she said simply, holding the shot glass out, "Ugly. Then good, then bad. That way I can hug you when you're done."

She winks, her finger up, tapping her own glass. "Just forewarning you, babe."

He grinned as she whistled the tune of the old western intro, and chuckled under his breath. Tony always felt much better when he was around people who understood his references and apart from Claude, Dani was the one who tended to know them all. Unless it was about Game of Thrones...that was Stef's forte.

He nodded at her request, amused at her reasoning and then took the shot glass, lifting it up. "Ugly it is." He threw the drink down and then pointed again at the tree. "My friend Leo and I rode our brooms over here once. We didn't stop, we just hovered for a bit as he explained that this was the tree the purebloods used to hang muggleborns from during the time of the Purge."

"He told me that his nanny had told him when he was young that a young woman who had watched her lover hang before her own death, with her dying breath brought a curse on all of those who'd done this to them. Then, lightning struck the tree, and it caught on fire. No leaves ever grew again, no flowers or fruit. Pureblood lords I guess found somewhere else to hang muggleborns, as they feared if they tried they would be struck down too."

The way he spoke - so pleasantly of a time so horrible - and the fact she barely reacted reminds her how damaged they both were. Maybe they were there to commemorate a lot more than Stefanie, she thinks. Their souls and burdens seemed like heavy weights to thrust on a cursed tree. But then. They had such a messed up life - what did it matter if they momentarily combined it with a messed up family on a messed up, cursed spot at the edge of the road where nothing new could grow?  
  
She thinks that was her reason she was bothered by it. A shiver sneaks up her spine even as Tony's jacket was supposed to keep her warm, and she lifts her own shot, looking curiously at it. Nothing new could grow? That wasn't true. The branches were blackened and twisted, it had burned and nothing grew -- but it had a strange kind of riveting beauty. Among the wreckage of love it struck fear into the bastards who destroyed them and generations later it still stands there, screaming out: I was here, I was here, I matter.  
  
That was power, she thinks. And that was beautiful.

He looked back to Daniella. "It's ugly, the history behind that tree, what it was reduced to. And ugly the people who did this to other people. Leo's ancestors, and mine, maybe even yours. You're half-French right?" He held out his shot glass for a refill and then smiled, "Come on, you'll like the good."

Calmly, she looks back at him. "I don't know about ugly. Tragic. Horrific. But ugly? I don't know, I think it's kind of...inspiring to think that even with her dying breath the woman was powerful enough to stop them from using this tree - nature, to hurt anyone else, and let them see the horror they'd caused."

Looking back at it, her eyes traverse the splinters, the browns and blacks and greys standing so proudly there in the snow.

"She forced those lords were forced to see their _our_ ugliness. I think that's kind of beautiful. Poetic anyway, for if they'd been more understanding, what beautiful thing might she have created instead?"

His lips flick up apprehensively as he sees the tree from her perspective now. The other side, the brighter side of the story. It was hard to find silver linings in clouds but Daniella seemed to be all about that. It was a miracle that he wasn't constantly turned off by her presence. Maybe it's because he realized he needed a little more positivity in his life.

She tears her eyes from it, and looks back to Tony, clearing her throat, her hair and then downing the shot in an instant. Her face clears with it as her throat gasps, and then she speaks happier - sweeter despite the sour whiskey. "Yeah, half-French, half-English Faye obviously. Least I know my ancestor tried, kind of succeeded though not alone, to stop it too. Mixed bag of history. Like me. But," as she refills she smiles too, "I'm sure I'll prefer the good better so, yes."

"Why does it feel like you're always trying to be contrary to spite me? *He bumped her shoulder with his and then shook his head in a chuckle.

It turns her lips up as he bumps her shoulder and as she swallows a little chuckle she bumps right back. "You have trust issues that's why."

She won't think how sometimes she thinks he's right to. That sometimes she thinks she couldn't trust herself with any of this. Even though she was all she had, and she'd always been for living in the moment instead of planning (over planning), analyzing (overanalyzing) and scheming. The best instincts she had were those of the moment; when she strung along things went badly.

He snorted. "Tell me about it." If those were the only issues he'd had though. That wouldn't be nearly so bad because you could work at your trust issues but you could scarcely work at hybrid issues given that it was a pretty unprecedented situation.

He nodded as she began pouring more shots and then once more took his own before retelling the story. He grinned.

"This whole road and field and tree is part of Olivier's journey. He learned how to drive here, well, a bit here, a bit back there, a bit in the highway." He grinned, "And that tree was the sole surveyor."

"The sole surveyor, really?" Groaning, she shakes her head, "Damn, I needed pictures of this! Blackmail." Right, yeah, because she wasn't starting to have plenty of access to that - okay, moving on, she didn't want to think about this, because it wasn't just Olivier she wants to help. Nor at this moment was it just Tony she did. Stefanie had become her friend.

"We went out for a drive after a fight, after I decided to leave the first time and he supported me. We just wanted to forget...everything, I suppose." He smirks, "So I put on my best puppy eyes to Claude, he let us, well mostly me, borrow his car. And we ended up here.  
  
He tilts his head, "It was because we got lost, but it was great. I didn't record video no matter how much I teased him I would because I didn't want our father to find out. Didn't want anyone else to find out actually, and we zoomed through here. Drove through the grass, Sabotage was playing on the radio, I was trying to freak him out by telling him he was going to run over a rabbit." He chuckles. "It was fun times, at the end I told him 'as God and this tree as my witness, there is proof that Olivier D'Grey is capable of fun and let me not forget it'."  
  
It was sad that he had, for a time, but he didn't say it  _wasn't_ a bit sad too, just that it was good, because to him it was. "Almost ran into that tree actually, because I dared him to drive with his eyes closed." He smirked. "Trust exercise! Trust in me to give him directions. Never did that again." he grinned, rolling his shoulders.

She finds herself breaking into laughter every other sentence of the story and finally just quieting as he did before she hums aloud, "And so you forget it constantly with God and the tree watching but hey, that means you remember it constantly too. Can't remember what you never forgot."  
  
She lifts the little glass up, toasts the tree and adds, "Let me remember too. To never let Tony dare me to drive with my eyes closed." She takes the shot, and then adds, "You taught him a lot more than driving, you know. That sounds just so much fun. And normal."  
  
Why was she surprised they'd have had such normalcy? So goddamn normal brothers screwing around on each other to pretend they hadn't just fought. Something her brothers would do. Turning back to him she asks quietly, "And the bad then?"  
  
One more shot was getting filled up.

Tony nodded and laughed along with Daniella, particularly liking the sentence of you couldn't remember something without forgetting it. And remembering was usually good, usually. But they had finished with the good, now it was time for the bad.  
  
They were making a ritual out of this. She poured the shots, he drank his before the explanation and then Daniella would drink hers after. Aww, look, they had a thing now along with Madame Sir Cuddles. With a smirk, he downed the shot, licked his lips after and then began.

 

| Tony |

"My first Christmas in the manor, Remington got me a Rottweiler puppy. Told me that I would train him, and feed him, and walk him, everything. And I did, I even remember hugging the man for the present," he shudders now, and almost asks for another shot. "I named it Drogon and I took him everywhere. I played with him, fed him, ran with him, me and Oli would go to the backyard and play fetch with him, all that jazz. He slept in my bed, oh the maids loooved that." He snorted and then shook his head.  
  
"Then about two years or so, I guess I was like 12, and recently so, I think we were both 12 for that month we share, when Remington wanted me to show him what I had taught Drogon. I taught him how to sit, lie down, roll over, get on his back paws and dance. Then Remington asked me if I had taught him to attack."  
  
He snorts again. "He's a guard dog, an attack dog. I told you to make him obey you and instead, you made him love you, and worse, you love him."  
  
"So, Remington killed him in front of me. Quick AK, just like that, and he was gone. I can still hear the whine..." he licked his bottom lip as he found it dry.* He was going to ask someone to get rid of it but instead I carried him and I wrapped him up in some bedcovers I saw when I ran into one of the maids, and then ran out of the house.  
  
Found myself here. *He points at the tree* Rather over there. It was dark by the time I stopped running, I didn't realize where I was until I saw the tree. I buried him there, used a good piece of wood that had fallen off a log to help me dig."  
  
He scoffs, shaking his head. "Bastard."

 

| Daniella |

When she initially had asked for the ugly first, it was because she imagined that on the scale of three -- ugly would be worst, the good be the best, and the bad be the real reason this was where he'd wanted to come. Now she realizes that she was right. But she was wrong, because this was the worst. This was absolutely, the worst. It was personal.  
  
(Wasn't everything though?)  
  
Down went the shot.  
  
Her throat tight, her heart itself felt constricted through the whole start, pounding as if walls were closing in faster the harder it thudded to remind her it exists. The image of Remington giving him a puppy was so odd, so nonchalant that she knew she was listening to a horror story long before there was any death. The lightning striking the tree and hallow ground being Drogon's final resting place only heightened the terror. Her mind dancing with images of a Rottweiler dancing on his back paws, on Tony hugging the vampire-father-monster that Oli called "Dad" so stubbornly, on logs doubling as shovels and maids shaking their heads in irritation, she exhales hard, hot, fast -- and finally makes good on her promise, hand lifting to wrap around his shoulders, bending her head to his shoulder and side, and squeezing tightly.  
  
When she spoke, she just said, "You know I've heard stories of how he was all my life -- how cruel he could be. The women, the feeding…" Her teeth grit. "But Tony, I don't think I've ever hated him more, now. That's more monstrous than…anything he ever did as a vampire, in my not very humble opinion."  
  
Her exhale was cold in the air, and can't help but think: I can't ever imagine Stefanie doing anything like that.  
  
She didn't speak now, she didn't ask her questions ("Did Oli know? Was he upset too- if he'd played with him? How could he be still saying he loved his father if this was the man he was?") Looking at the tree and rubbing a tear out of the corner of her eye, she lets the moment rest for a long time. And holds on. Letting him hold on to her too.  
  
And then she says slowly, her head tilting, "So. Tree of Life." She speaks to it. "Bearer and witness of brotherhood and undying love and permanent tragedy and the impermanence of prejudice. Think you've got room for one more memory here at least? Because my friend," she squeezes Tony's arm, even as she speaks of Stef, "Stefanie. She's a good person, honestly. Impulsive. Not quite as good at darts as she thinks she is, or as smart as she thinks she is but a great friend. Fantastic dancer. There when you needed her too -- I mean, there was this one time where she helped me learn the right way to get a wine stain out and let me borrow the skirt she had on right off her. Sooo much more meaningful than the shirt off her back, you know? Cause she was wearing someone's shirt."  
  
She looks at Tony pointedly, then back to the tree.  
  
"And it was too big for her, so she was covered anyway. Actually I think a lot was too big for her. Her heart definitely was. She's passionate like sin. And it's great, she's so…effusive she can light up a room.  It also means she can be…well, she's suffering, because she loves so much. She didn't want to hurt anymore, like no one ever does. So now, she's changing. Which is an understatement, because truth is? She died."  
  
In that instant Daniella thought her heart stopped too. The moment of silence stretches, as she thinks about the odd nature of life and how much worse and better at the same time magic had made anything (everything).  
  
Taking a breath, she looks from the tree back to Tony, "But she's still here too. She is, just like you are, and well. We'll find her. Cause I'm really stubborn like that. But."  
  
Her smile spreads slightly, she cocks and eyebrow and looks at Tony. Oh god, was Daniella stubborn. She lifts the shot now, handing it to him so they both could take it after her words.  
  
"We're going to miss her even as we find her again too."  
  
Swallow, gasp.  
  
Then her eyebrows wiggle at Tony, she lifts a finger and points at it, "That's my trying to ask in your patented eyebrow communication if you have anything to add?"

 

| Tony |

Yeah, actually, he did need that hug now. He wrapped an arm around her as well and squeezed, though he took care not to use his hybrid strength otherwise he would crush and telling Oli 'so I drank with your girlfriend and then crushed her to death' would only make this day worse. "I could think of a few other things." He murmured, shrugging his shoulders, though not enough to push her away, but he nevertheless agreed. It was real fucked up. And he hated that man, hated him. Even now, when he was dead and ash, Tony still hated him.  
  
He looked up as Daniella started speaking, addressing the Tree of Life and he quickly blinked to clear his sight. Daniella had such a way with words, Tony had already noticed that before and attributed it to her publicist occupation, but honestly it could very well be innate and inherited (she did talk about one of her ancestors being a good orator, hasn't she?).  
  
He nodded along with every description, smirked as she recounted the wine-stain story Dani had once embellished for his benefit. Then he smiled, not realizing Stef had been wearing his shirt at the time. It only made the story that much better, really. But Daniella was brilliantly spot on.  
  
She died. And unlike Drogon, he didn't have a body to bury. He didn't have anything to bury actually, not even those memories they spoke of. But that was mostly out of choice; he didn't want to let them go. Which coincided perfectly with Daniella looking at him and saying they would find her. Never the woman she had been, she was dead, but now someone new, maybe even improved. It was just so hard to accept that when he had been perfectly happy with the old version, even if Stefanie herself hadn't been.  
  
He took the shot from her hand, nodded with a small smile in place and then threw it down. Licking his lips again, he snorted at her description of her eyebrow wiggle and then nodded again.

"Yeah, though that's not what your eyebrows said."  
  
He smirks and looks forward at the tree again, swallowing a lump in his throat as he thought of Rome, of her meeting Nonna and their conversation over the phone. The butterflies, couldn't forget the butterflies. "Stef has this way of being...like she's magnetic. I told her in Rome that every time I saw her, it felt like I had to be better than I was the day before."  
  
She was poetic and her smile infectious. Her smirk even more so, god I don't know any woman who could smirk like her." His own smirk rose up in honor.  
  
"I'd have loved...to have spent more days being normal with her. Even if everyone around me thinks normal is boring, this freak included." He patted Dani's knee. "But I'm grateful for every second because she was...is, truly special." He nodded, licking his lips. "I just wish that she could have seen, that absent family, brothers, and losing everything...I wish she could have seen that what was left was her. And she was enough. She was more than enough."  
  
He turned back to Dani and wiggled his eyebrows, "Now these are the eyebrows that you gave me, and they say 'how did I do?'"

He wiggled them again the same way.

 

| Daniella |

And what did my eyebrows say? She almost asks this, but he was turning from her with a little snort and smirk, so as she lowers her finger again she prods his chest and says instead, "I said something naughty then, I imagine?"  
  
Well, there was that popular-culture term "eye-fucking" after all and if they were anything, they weren't common. Parodies, though? Oh yeah, she and Tony were that, absolutely that. So she had to imagine there was a heavy amount of "eyebrow-fucking" possible in this weird language, and as it was invented with his brother -- she really could see them going around bars just eyebrow fucking random waitresses.  
  
She stills as she listens, finding her smile softening (And smirking too as if to gasp and point to herself -- ahem! She could smirk. Only Tony continued on with saying he'd wanted just normal days with Stef and Daniella felt an odd, somber shiver go through her. A normal, human life. She wondered if Stefanie knew he'd felt that way and then thinks: they must have, at least one text message had been sent in Rome (and it was several, Dani just wasn't sure which were Tony and Stef messing with her and has them now saved and locked on her phone just for...posterity's sake.) One message though...  
  
Stef had known. Tony was seriously trying to break Dani's heart, she thinks, as she echoes under her breath, "more than enough," thinking about that message. (Well hell, not that she'd tell Stef or, ahem, Oli, but she was already leaps and bounds better than Hans). Still, that little barrage of texts she'd gotten makes her think: at least she'd spent her last day as a human say happy.  
  
And she had no idea what a blue rose had to do with anything but as she thinks about it again, she lightens. Looking back to Tony, she pretends to watch very closely what he was showing her with his eyebrows and then says happily, "Excellent."

It was a brave face against crying now she attempts, rubbing under her eye again and rubs her throat to protest the burn. Hell, the amount of shots they'd just done in such quick succession...she knew it wasn't a good idea to drive again.  
  
She turns towards the tree, furrows her brow and then hops off the car, pulling his hand. Only to be stopped abruptly by the fact she realized she was trying to move a marble statue and she hisses in surprise. "...Jesus."

She mutters teasingly, pleasantly warm now despite the snow and still starts going to the tree on her own. "I didn't have any idea, for the record, what the two of you were going on about in that text message avalanche you sent me from the forum, but I do remember one thing."  
  
She tilts her head, hands buried in Tony's jacket's pocket, "Think a blue rose would be a good tribute or do I have the reference wrong?"

 

| Tony |

"Thank you." He inclines his head, particularly grateful she hadn't given voice to the clear 'oh, Tony' expression she had on her face as she looked at him. It was easy if you didn't think to deeply on it, and with alcohol in his system, it was definitely easy to go with an array of jumbled thoughts than to dive deep into a specific one.  
  
"You may call me Tony." He answers cheekily at her little hiss as he watches her walk forward to the tree. Reminding him of those text messages, Tony chuckles and then after swallowing a lump, nods his head. "Yeah, that's perfect."  
  
He slides off the hood now and leans his head in through the open window to turn the battery on and start his radio. Plugging in his iPod, he knew which song he was gonna select. And damn, did he almost hate himself for being so...insensitive? He clicks play, and turns up the volumes before walking back towards the front of the car and then continued forward to stand next to Dani by the tree.  
  
"I've been traveling down this road too loooong, just tryna find way back home...the old me's d ead and gone, dead and goone." He smirked a moment and then shook his head. "Hey, at least I didn't play 'I'll be Missing You' right?"

| Daniella |

"Oh you have to b-" she nearly burst out laughing at the sudden jolt to her heart from the song he chose to put on. Her hand sandwiches her side and she throws the other in the air, "really Tonio?"  
  
And yet she couldn't help but pick up the tune herself as she rolled her eyes, saying simply, "Well if I didn't know that Stefanie would probably be pretty proud, I might hit you." She pauses, and then allows. "Okay if I didn't know Stefanie would be proud, and if I didn't know that would hurt me more than you. But still. It's mostly the first one."  
  
She waits until he was by her side again before slipping her hand into her pocket under his jacket to try and find the wand so she could conjure their little tribute- her blue rose, assuming Tony would conjure his. Tilting her head and looking at him she adds a bit softer (when she stops singing, damn that catchy tune), "You know whatever happens, you're not alone, right?"

| Tony |

"Yeah, really." He grins and then explains, "T.I. and J.T., its a perfect a combination. And besides," he smirks "I think you're right, Stefanie would be proud. Now how this would stop you-- ah." He smirks again and then nods as she reveals the real reason why she refrained from hitting him. Even then, he had more than a slight inkling that if Dani  _really_ wanted to hit him, she wouldn't hesitate.  
  
"I think that's words we should be telling Stefanie, not me." He smiles and takes out his wand before slipping an arm around Dani. "Hey freak?"

His eyebrows rises expectantly as he looked at her, and watched her own eyebrow rise in answer. He grinned and then admitted.

"I'm glad you're here."

| Daniella |

She didn't move -- or blink, or shiver or curl up under his warm arm. Hey that was odd, weren't vampires cold? But then, Tony was only half-vamp, and he was warm, right now so warm as well be on fire. Nope, she just curled right back into him, squeezed and savored the fact that she could hold on to him now. At least she didn't have to worry about breaking him.  
  
And then the fact that he said it aloud, to her, so easily. As if it weren't spoken like he was letting go of something and she just blinks back a tear and smiles at him as easily as he did.* Yeah, we should tell her that, definitely -- see! Now you're teaching me. *Her shoulder bumps his again.  
  
She pulls back to leave the rose without letting him go, tossing it onto the snowy trunk and watching it rest for a few seconds. When she looks up she adds idly,* I'm gathering -- gathered, that your brother told you then, hence the renewed references here.  *She winks.* But I do still prefer empress, Caeser, just so you know...and yes.   
  
*She licks a dry lip quickly, throat raw and goddamn that alcohol. The tiniest bit quieter but equally stubborn, she looks straight in his wild, seductive blue eyes as she promises (and means every word),* I'm glad I'm here too, Tony.

 


	17. Armistice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> surrender if you feel this   
> (hammer the steel)  
> No, I can't let you go.   
> (and when I find you...  
> ...that's when I'm gonna need you)
> 
> us and them, the lost forgiven  
> dawn again, and back through oblivion  
> their grave dead hearts  
> falls armistice,   
> the last waves depart...
> 
> always love, always love, always lovers

After being sober enough to drive, he drove back to the D'Grey mansion where Daniella promptly got an oh-so-perfectly-timed call from Amalie about something urgent and she quickly had to leave. Tony quickly surmised that the only reason she hadn't disapparated was because she wanted to make sure that Tony didn't accidentally or even purposefully drive off a cliff.

Once he was there he promptly grabbed another bottle because of the fact he was back to being semi-sober. Exchanging some eyebrow acrobatics with his brother let him know that Stefanie was outside and that they hadn't killed the man. Yay! See, now the drink could be used to celebrate as well.  
  
Sliding the glass door to the left, he stepped through it and then closed it behind him.  
  
"I thought about getting you a blood-cake with the frosting reading 'Congratulations on the feeding!' but I figured an order like that would take some time to make."

"And if you made it yourself, you'd accidentally eat all the ingredients."  
  
The heel of her hand dropped from under her eyes the moment the door slid open, and she popped another grape in her mouth quickly. He wasn't allowed to see her cry - and it was fine, because she'd heard him coming a mile off (he wasn't trying to be quiet even if she couldn't hear his heartbeat). The moment she had, her regret disappeared, along with all thoughts of Marcel. She'd smirked, then frowned, then caught a non-necessary breath and responded brightly. Damn vampire emotions were going to drive her insane - was this something the brothers dealt with too?  
  
No wonder Tony had been always so passionate.

"That would put a bit of a damper on things, yes." He smirked, shrugging his shoulders.   
  
Tony tried not to make it apparent that he was surveying her as much as he could but given that her new eyesight let her view and absorb everything with a downright annoying amount of detail. Then again, so was he but no matter how much he drank (he thought), he'd never be as keenly sensitive. Good, he thought.  
  
He walked over and sat down on the porch railing as she sat on one of those swinging lawn chairs but that in this house looked as if they were merely floating in mid-air. Noticing the wine in her glass he asked after a tilt of his head.   
  
"Did you get some to-go?"

Popping a grape into her mouth and sucking the juice dry, her lips were purple-stained. At least she'd given him a reason not to picture blood with it. Her hand clenches around the railing, she rolls her eyes, and takes a sip for show.  
  
"It's a pinot noir." She points to the bottle behind her, eyes cocked, "Or wait, I should say, you know nothing. Yeah?"   
  
"Completely and utterly untrue." He popped the cork out with a nail and then set it down on the railing.   
  
"Really, completely and utterly?" She mimics his vocal tone perfectly, "I'm not so sure. You do seem certain about this with only one-side of the experience, which was Ygritte's point."  
  
Her eyes track the projectile, watching him pop-catch-and place the cork. She'd seen him do that before, she thinks dimly with a head tilt as her eyes trace down the back of his neck (and chews another grape quickly). The difference astounds her. She could have done her nails and caught the cork at the same time if it was worth her time, how slow it fell.   
  
"If I were that certain about my position I'd have kicked you out. Ergo, Ygritte's famous one-liner does not apply. Besides, I am definitely no Jon Snow."  
  
"You presume you could." The truth was, his words had put a shiver up her spine as she thinks: she was glad, very glad, he hadn't done that.  It was flippant and petulant, but through her lips anyways and somehow, still smooth. Everything was smooth now, she marvels, turning her gaze back to him. 

"I am quite confident in my abilities, yes." He shrugs, before he lets that subject quickly dropped; he wouldn't have kicked her out, not in any lifetime or alternate world. Well...no, probably not. And besides, he didn't want to talk about her not being there for whatever reason: kicked out, ostracized, or dead. Well, more dead than she was right at that moment.  
  
"Of couurse it's pinot noir, the alternative would have us in a very...ha ," he smirked, using the word from before, "interesting altercation."  
  
"Altercation, suesser? I'm going to need a little more description for why that's so undesired, Snow."  
  
Another caught-unnecessary-breath sweetens her words.  
  
"Because we'd fight to the Death, khaleesi. Probably mine, you're recently fed and am half-sober on my way back to half-drunk." He extends the bottle back to her with a lift of his eyebrows, "Want something stron-gah?"  
  
Who did he feel like most right about now? Ah, he knew precisely who. He tilts his head and then remarks with a smirk.  
  
"Now, Jorah, feeling very Jorah-like. Around the A Dance with Dragons era."   
  
He really did need to stop sounding like a bitter dick and channel more of how he was feeling back by the Tree of Life. He exhaled and then after the bottle was open, took a swig. It was still early in the afternoon; this was going to be a doozy of a day. Week. Month. Year?  
  
It felt like a dare, everything felt like a dare: his challenge couldn't go unanswered, his eyebrow wiggles weren't written into his forehead so much as danced around tell-tale signs of brood he wanted to ignore. Her own curve, and she chuckles under her breath.   
  
"Are we talking the show Jorah or book version though," she idles, pointed, "since in the book he's like forty, and fat."

"Definitely book Jorah, he's a lot more miserable. Do you think I could get fat?" He asks, suddenly curious. "Because I've been drinking since I was 12 and it's not like I got a beer gut to prove it." He pats his own stomach and then shrugs. "Besides, he's not fat. He's just old, and very hairy except for on his head...maybe a bit chubby but he's still fit.  
  
Ooh, a receding hair-line, I don't think I could handle that." He shook his head and took another gulp of the drink as she declined his drink but as she began to move, his own senses slowing it down, he tensed and leaned his neck away from her mouth as the breath she doesn't need hits his skin.

No, he definitely wasn't getting fat. Her eyes trail along him, choosing with utter unflinching determination to focus on the thought of the abs he pats so carelessly. (Otherwise she'd linger on the determination being "he's more miserable", and she couldn't take that right now). Her head shakes. "You've buffed up, though."  
  
It was a jab as much of a compliment; oh, how double-encoded all their conversations had become! He hates that, even if he enjoys the strength aspect of his hybrid's body. Stefanie knew it, and she knew why he hated it, and all things considered - she had to admit, she thought he was being a bit judgmental. Then again, as Tony had said to her once before he never claimed he wasn't a hypocrite.

He chuckles, wiggling his eyebrows, "Next thing you know I'm going to hire a whore that looks exactly like you, but with a pulse."  
  
She waves off his bottle, popping another grape. That makes her chuckle, and to forestall thinking too hard on the comment, she shakes her head.  
  
"Oh, that seems like such a shame though, when I'm -" sidling along the railing she appears in a flash behind his floating seat, hands bridging his back and holding on to the wood instead, "- right here."  
  
That she breathes around his neck, breath hotter now with lingering remnants of the choir director singing through her veins.  
  
In another blink he was standing, looking at her from across the small porch.

"Don't do that."

She blinks as he moves, pulling temptation with him across the porch. Her eyebrow arches higher, following his abrupt retreat. "Why not?"  
  
She hums, a wicked grin crossing her lips as she comes around the side of the swing at a depressingly human pace. "I'm pretty sure," her small, white hand trails along the edge of the wood, "you like it." She taps the edge of her ear and looks at his chest pointedly for an instant, then back to his eyes.

"Because." Wow, that sounded even lamer aloud than it had sounded in his head. Was he being predatorily stalked right at this moment? He hadn't ever felt it, hadn't ever been on the opposite either to tell the truth, but he was assuming this was the beginning of what it must feel like. Especially as, as Stefanie had pointed out oh-so-helpfully, his heart was betraying his words.  
  
God, she loved his eyes.

"And I'd like to see any woman try to be my equal, especially now, frankly." She drums her nails along the edge of the chair, but looks at him square, words softening, if only for an instant. "I don't want to talk about what happened, Tony. There's nothing we could say." She licks her bottom lip, in a quick dart. Her words were honest. "And you always were...are, have been, I hate tenses -" she waves her hand, breath scant, "so good at that. Non-verbal comfort. To put it in the academic."   
  
She smiles, but there's a softer look in her icy eyes; a hint of fear.  
  
He licked his lips and then chewed on his bottom one. "Because right now as a newborn, your lusts are very tied together and I don't want you to munch a piece of my neck off. And to tell you the truth," he wrinkled his nose and then shook his head, "I was never much for the vampire kink. Being stabbed and pierced by deadly sharp fangs just sounds painful, not pleasurable..."  
  
But again, the body betrayed his words. He was still as attracted as ever and those pheromones? Oh it was completely true, damn it. And apparently it worked on hybrids. He looked at up at the sky briefly, as if he could ask the big man 'really?'.

"You make it sound so clinical." The tip of her tongue flicks against the roof of her mouth in distaste at the thought of ripping off pieces of his neck. Why did that twinge her oh-so-brow-beaten heart to picture? The mess it would create - well, it would waste it; precision grants, as Olivier had said, better access, less pain and more blood flow. Stef knew she wouldn't waste a single drop if she could help it.  
  
Then of course, he went on to describe it further and oh, Tony might be wrinkling his nose but Stefanie's tongue darts across her lips again.

Tony's gaze flickered back to Stefanie's own as he found himself agreeing...he didn't really want to talk about it either. It had happened, it was over (not that he hadn't called Harper and asked 'hypotheticals') and the old Stefanie was dead.  
  
"I buried you earlier." He finds himself speaking even after she had commented on how great he had been at non-verbal comfort. "There's an unmarked grave for the woman you used to be under the Tree of Life. Well, maybe not entirely unmarked- two blue roses adorn it.  
  
Dani and I spoke a few words, while the song Dead and Gone played in the background. It was a lovely ceremony, think you might have liked it."  
  
Eyes darting traitorously to his neck where she could see a vein throbbing, like a blue beating drum calling for her, her lips moisten around her tongue. "Oh, Antonio." She murmurs at his nose-wrinkling dismissal of "the vampire kink." We'd be exploring that together. I want," her voice was silk again with her step forward, "to give you pleasure too..."  
  
The Mistress' tone had crept up again as an ache appears in her gums again, but she tries to force it back. Inhale, exhale -- yeah, breathing only increased the scent, that was not help.

"As masochistic as I claim to be," he began after dry swallowing, then realizing he could wet swallow so he took another sip, "getting the life force sucked out of me doesn't do much for me." Now when he drank blood...no, he still didn't feel pleasure. In all of the fucked up and twisted emotions that ransacked his body when he first tasted blood, pleasure was never one of them.  
  
"I did. Sort of like the post-humous Oscar they gave Heath Ledger...queen of love and beauty." His lips flick and he looks down to his feet for a split second. Even the brief moment he realized would have appeared long to Stefanie's eyes. A difference between vampires and hybrids, from what he could tell, is that they had to control themselves to do things at human speed where as him as a hybrid sort of had to...shift into turbo to move quicker. And of course, be hyped up on blood.  
  
So it was now natural for Stef to move that quickly back to his side, this time he didn't flinch or move away, just took another drink as she looked forward and he remained staring at the empty space where she used to be. Yuck, poetic.

His comments stop her, though. His comments completely drowned out his quick breaths, quicker heart and rushing blood. Her gaze lifts from his neck to his eyes, and she stops walking.

"Buried me?"  
  
Stefanie stands still as he continues, but her lips betray her again at the mention of blue roses. This time they quirk with amusement and an honest smile. The flutter of breath against her lips this time was sudden as she laughs at the oh-so-sensitive song choice (that only made her smile widen). Dropping her hand from the arm rest and drumming her fingers against her thighs now, she shakes her head - torn between anger and hurt and affection and so overwhelmed for the few moments that passed, she just kept looking in his eyes.

"I do love blue roses." Soft, if wry, "You crowned me the queen of love and beauty?"  
  
Her face was softened, round and she finds herself blinking a single, abrupt tear from one eye before she looks away into the low sun in the sky. Blame it on that, she thinks. And the alcohol, which she very much wished she hadn't left on the balcony's railing at the moment, if moving towards him again was just going to make him run away again. Challenged by the mere thought, she blinks back to his side. This time she faces the expansive manor grounds while he stays facing toward where she'd been, and she reaches for the wine bottle, taking a sip directly from it this time. After wondering where the cork went idly, she looks down, and folds her hands on the railing.   
  
They'd buried her. Sang a little song, put flowers on the grave...said words. _But I'm right here_ , she wanted to scream. _I'm right here, I didn't go anywhere_...I'm just a little more durable. Her words were stayed by the strange thought it was poetic - that she thought she did like the idea.

"I'm here, Tony." She says instead.   
  
Bringing her hand up from the wood to toy with her gold cross, she stares at it. Her mother's, she thinks, trying to recall what she looked like. A photograph floats across her mind washed out and watered down, but a good memory nonetheless. Herself, her parents, her brothers...all together at the lake countryside, going diving off the highest dock. The cross imprints on her skin. Tony wore a cross too, she thinks as the chain moves between her fingers.

"You know." She tilts her head as her mouth dries with his words, and offers as if lifting him the olive branch she was staring at, "I never claimed you'd be the one drunk from. Or rather, the only one." He had to take another swig of the alcohol to stop himself from imagining the taste before he sighed. He couldn't drink blood without killing the other person and if Stefanie was a vampire now and capable of stopping him, he wouldn't want his first attempt at control to be with her; he didn't want her to see him like that because he knew he'd fail.  
  
Without looking at him, she remarks on a voice of satin.

"You could tell me what you said now." It was just a thought, for being so close to him - like he'd been drawn as much as she was - was a little distracting. Yet Stefanie was being serious. If he was so determined to talk (first) then she'd rather know he honored or commemorated her than anything else. Her eyes stay locked on his, smolders between them - though whose, she wasn't sure.

Of course there would be olive trees on the D'Grey grounds. It was the wrong climate, but magic took care of that enough, didn't it? It amuses her to think - were those a testament or tribute to Olivier? As Tony had rightfully said of his brother once, he wasn't one for much modesty. She thinks, it's because he confuses love with pride, and then speaks again before she linger on the fact she might relate.

They spent a few moments in silence before she said, repeated actually hadn't she said similar back at the church?, that she was still there. But Daniella had explained it correctly (something he would never say out loud) that Stef hadn't wanted to be the same woman  who had seen her brother die and couldn't do anything to stop it.  
  
"I thought you didn't want to talk." He takes another swig, lifting his eyebrows as he tilts his head to look at her.

Her eyes dart away as his did, back to the olive tree, picking up her wine glass and sipping so fast she wasn't sure she didn't want it to be blood. She doesn't say another word until he speaks and then responds innocently enough, a coy smile on her lips again.

"I don't." She looks back to him without blinking. "But as you seem to be determined to do so, I wouldn't rape you, Antonio. In any fashion. However goddamn tempting you are."   
  
He puts the cork in the bottle noticing it was halfway empty and thinking perhaps it was time to pause and then snorted.

"Well, thank you for that, I can sleep easier." He smirks and then looks back to her, smirk softening until it eventually gives away. "If you don't want to talk, we won't talk. But why you would want physical comfort from a coward though, that stumps me."

"Post-humous." A dry chuckle escapes her lips as she watches him. More specifically, his eyes darting down, like he was afraid, or ashamed, but was echoed in the sound of his heart. "Technicality aside, unlike Heath I could have accepted that myself, you know. Or are you saying I'm no longer worthy of that laurel crown?" 

"That's not what I mean. " He replied quickly enough with a whisper, shaking his head from side to sie. "You just..." he pursed his lips and then turned to face her completely. "I said a lot of things about you in that little speech, but what I said last was that I wish you saw what I see and that is that...absent your family, absent friends, and even absent hope, the only thing you were left with was yourself. And you're more than enough."

It gave Stefanie pause, to hear his softened words, enough to drop her own gaze as his had before and no quicker than she might have when still human. It was back in her chest. That swell, that warmth, rising from a cold gut fanned this time by life not taken from some godly singer - but given freely. Of a half (at least) drunken hybrid who stood by when Marcel died (because he was fighting to save her life instead) - but freely given all the same.   
  
And then whatever it was that warmed her was flooded with ice at his persistent use of past tense. Were, more than enough. If she'd been that human, she wonders, what like was she to be as a vampire? She licks her top lip, sets the glass down and turns to him full as well.

"I didn't say you were a coward." Her words were dry from aching gums, but her smile still honest. "I said you'd acted like one, and it was...ill of me to say."  
  
A breeze tickles at her skin, reminding her she knew where he was most ticklish. It almost makes her chuckle, were he not looking so somber. "When, point of fact is you were only there to brave things no one should ever have had to deal with for your brother's health. So, no, I don't blame you for his death, Tony. I just..." she swallows tightly. Words failing her she reverts quickly to their game, their jokes and comparisons, though her eyes remained soft. "You know, Dany went through a rebirth herself once or maybe even twice if you count in Meereen."  
  
Tony snorts at the technicality and then shook his head, a small smile on his face despite himself and despite the whole situation.* Oh, myyy bad. *He looked back again when she said she shouldn't have said that to begin with and he had to admit that he knew how to breathe much easier again when she voiced out loud that she didn't blame him.  
  
'I just' followed by the pause, seemed to be a recurring thing between them today. Like they were trying to express themselves and just couldn't find the right words. No wonder Stefanie didn't want to talk about it.  
  
So she reverted back to something safe between the two of them and he followed. He almost spoke that fire couldn't kill a dragon, but even that would now be painful for her given the nature of her brother's death. "And she came out all the better in the end, yeah."  
  
Stefanie shrugs his immediate remark off as quick as anything, eager to focus on something else. The depression seemed to have moved firmly to "guilt and bargaining" if she was taking the clinical stand on it and frankly, as a Khaleesi properly should, she more favored fire. Or...had. Ack. Her throat was burning, that was certain anyway.   
  
With an eye-roll at the quick follow-yet-dismissal of her point, she sidled along the railing at a speed slow enough he could move if he wanted until her hips hovered less than an inch from his. Hair shining around her from the low-hanging sun, her eyes stayed on his.

Breathless as she's supposed to be now, she asked quietly, "Don't you think I could do that too?"   
  
He watched her slide closer and wondered what his heart would sound like to her ears, and how she would see his face. In college, his friend Ashlee had a mirror that had something like an 8x zoom. 'Perfect for revealing every imperfection' she had said. That's how he felt now; very exposed.  
  
His eyes fought between focusing on her eyes or her mouth, finally settling on her eyes at the end. "I don't have faith in many people, I know, it's very un-Christian of me. But I do have faith in you."  
  
"Actually, that's perfectly Christian." Humming, Stefanie lifts her hand slowly from the railing, eyes fixed on his. The stare reminds her: how easily Olivier had convinced the man nothing had happened after slipping him a drop or two of her own blood. He'd forgotten her entirely. Probably would let her join the choir if she asked...the irony amused her.

"We're all born sinners, and what not. Maybe a little more true for the both of us."  
  
He hadn't moved away from her, and Stefanie took that as a good sign: lifts her finger to his neck and trails her nail up it slowly. Praise the Lord. If she needed to breathe, she would have even sighed in relief. Truthfully, the fact was-- she was going mostly on instinct, and the instinct was clear: want. She wants him, and whatever he might have said, the same want from him rolled off his warm skin.  (Tony had legitimate concerns, but wasn't that part of the game?) And it was true they both hurt each other...but, well. He'd proved already he could handle her new strength even better than she could; she couldn't break him. (Could she? Had she?) Eyes staying on his, apparently disregarding her own motions, her voice lowers still.

"Then, why again, do you have such an issue with -"  
  
Her finger stops it's slow trail and she darts around him again. This time squeezing his arms into his sides, she breathes against his ear, noting he'd stubbornly pushed back to keep his neck from direct view. Clever. Toying with him or not -- and it did feel a bit like she was -- she was relieved to hear that. It's only seduction, she swears, adding further: and only because she wanted sex, nothing else. (Well, maybe).

" - me doing this?"  
  
Tony hissed in the midst of a chuckle and playfully reprimanded. "Harsh." But true, very sadly true. Maybe drinking another half a bottle by himself in such little time hadn't been a good idea but then again when had that ever stopped him? In Tonio's world, the best thing to do when you were wallowing in misery was to let yourself sink in further.  
  
Oh that little nail could slice his jugular so easily, Tony thought as she passed her nail over his neck, making the hairs on the back of it stand up.   
  
And then she was behind him and with an inhale he pushed his head back instead of craning his neck which would only be worse in the long run. He really had to commend her though, she was a natural. Good or bad, for right now he didn't want to bother with that.

"Because I don't like giving people my back."  
  
He pushed her arms away with his elbows and then turned to press against her, hands on the railing to steady him. "So we're back to this?" He spoke under his breath. "Wicked hot sex in an attempt to hide everything's shit?"  
  
The world spins as he moves at a speed echoed in his eyes a shade less than true black. It hurts for a blinding fast moment as her back struck the wood, forcing a bruise. That didn't bother her. She knew would heal before she drew a breath. No, what bothered her was what she tastes in his exhale - in his challenge - a bitter tang. She wants to eat that away, knowing full well it wasn't the whiskey he'd downed so quickly that stung. That would be indulgence, that would be sweet. This was ... regret.  
  
Like he was doing her a fucking favor, she thinks incensed, giving in despite his better judgment and reason. Heat flashes through her icy eyes and she leans to tug his bottom lip in her mouth. Her eyes stay open as she runs the tip of her tongue along his upper lip, slowly, drawing it out despite skips in his chest she relishes, her hands replaced on his waist. Her nails bit into his skin as she retorts into his mouth, "Stop." And she nips- shallow, on his lip, "talking."  
  
 _Stop talking. Well, it wasn't exactly as she had left him a choice and it wasn't as if he had any self-control to do otherwise._ Truthfully, Tony had wanted to kiss her since the moment he opened the door and saw at her standing there, before promptly letting herself in, declaring her intent in lodging.  
  
Stefanie was right, he was very good at physical comfort, both giving and taking but right now he wanted to do more of the taking. Stefanie was acting like such a cool customer about all of this- the bloodlust, the strength, the speed, all of it. Tony had worried that it came with the change, but during the memorial and burial, as Dani and him spoke words, he realized that trying to make it seem like she was okay with everything was actually a very Stefanie thing to do. Words lied but actions or rather reactions, immediate and instinctual, they rarely betrayed.  
  
A small hiss left his lips and hit hers as hands gripping on the wood transferred over to her hips, gripping with the same strength, knowing she was unbreakable, and yet her curves still felt as soft. Her teeth on his bottom lip, which at any time could easily break the skin and start drinking from him, nipped the same way and her tongue, that delicious tongue...  
  
He pressed his mouth against her hard, in a searing kiss that contradicted the teasing nature which she'd pull him in with, pressing them closer together as he realized with growing relief her mouth still tasted the same after wine, that her lips weren't hard as stone and maybe if he opened his eyes he'd see that her skin didn't flush the same way, and eventually he'd recognize she could no longer work up a sweat, but he'd take what he could get.*  
  
 _Tony was playing it cool,_ she thinks, _but only for a moment_ \-- as if in the instant his lips met hers he decided (or maybe there wasn't much forward thought involved) not to think. To be grateful that this between them had always been easy.  Inevitable. He'd closed the gap between them with such sudden ferocity she knew he was trying to prove something, but couldn't (wouldn't) fathom what. Stefanie feels the temperature of his skin skyrocket, blistering and igniting sparks as she ran her palms down his neck. Then gripped it. Spun them both. Slam.   
  
Never did she pull her lips from his as she pushes him against the nearest balustrade, and dear God, was it possible he actually tasted better? In ecstasy of his mouth (in relief of his surrender), she breathes in his heat like it was a drug until it fingers up her spine. Hers twist down to his shirt, taking care to open the buttons without ripping a thread. (It was Varvatos, and damn did he look good in white).  
  
 Realizing suddenly that Tony needed breath she didn't, she pulls back. Her eyes were a little glazed over as they pass over him, lingering pointedly on his neck where she could see a vein throbbing, blue - purple - all the oxygen already gone from it. How funny that was, she thinks as her nail trails over it once more. (Goddammit, he was right about this lusts-tied-together-thing.)   
  
Veins popped around her own eyes as she forces her gaze back to his. Slow, methodic, she pulls in one breath, then another, then kisses just behind his ear instead -- tempting herself, sure, hovering so close to what she wanted but thinking as she did: foreplay could be just as satisfying, couldn't it?    
  
While she might not have need for breath, he was still human (half-human) and did need to breathe, as well as exhale in a low gasp as she spun them, his lower back hitting the railing now. So that's what that felt like, he thought vaguely as his hands rode up her shirt to touch the soft skin underneath.  
  
They part, his pupils almost entirely dilated, more black than blue as he looked at her and saw the veins pop around her eyes, knowing her fangs could be seconds from popping out. He feels a shiver run down his spine and he was unsure whether it was from fear and disgust or excitement. Tony didn't precisely want to know, especially when she started kissing behind his ear.  
  
She took such good care of his shirt, but it was less patient: hers he ripped down the middle with a sharp tug, sliding his hands up her sides and then pushed off, crawling over her as they land on the porch swing with a heavy thud, making it rock back and forth, his lips finding hers again.*  
  
Hair twirling as he snaps her across, she catches a fresh whiff of her shampoo as clearly as if it weren't twilight now, dusk falling with them into the swing. She let him push her, she thinks dimly, too addicted to the feel of his hands (so hot as they slid up her stomach). Her hands wander around his lower back, grasping hot, sensitive skin before slipping below the slacks he'd worn to church. (She relishes that thought, even living in sin).  
  
A sharp gasp to echo his leaves her throat as she mutters, "Guess it's a good thing I already took the sweater off -" then meets his lips, letting him take the rest of the thought in his mouth. She'd give him that, she thinks, well aware now what it was she would take from him. Kissing up again and again and again (tugging hard on his bottom lip with her teeth) as she spread her legs to settle him between, she shivers with the realization she was stronger than he was. Oh, it was a close thing, but she was: it would never be a fair fight. 

_Who was talking now?_ He let the smirk against her lips speak the comment for him as he ground against her as her legs spread open to accommodate him.

It screamed excitement under her skin: he couldn't break her anymore, he wouldn't hold back -- and she could overwhelm him. It would be so easy! Just - reach up, grip, snap.   
  
Or more preferably, rip, that red stream wide open and let heaven into her mouth. Her nails dig into his backside as she squeezes, turns her head against his lips. Pulling back as she realizes her teeth had broken the flesh of his lip, she freezes with crimson in her hazy, shot gaze at the pricks of blood falling on her own.  
  
His hands reach her covered breasts and he cups and kneads them in his hands; they fit as perfectly as they had before. And after a deep inhale through his nose he realizes her hair still smell of coconuts.  
  
A deep hiss and an exhaled 'ah' leave his mouth as he opens his eyes and stays frozen as he watches blood hit her lip. Tenser than ever before, he realized as much as he struggled, he wasn't the only one tempted. Somehow he found the strength to push away before she could grab him, turn his head, sink her teeth, and landed on the other end of the porch.* I can't do this.  
  
He flew away from her so fast she couldn't stop him - like she was the hot stove to his screaming kettle, still boiling over. His heart thuds, resounding so fast in her ear she couldn't help the thought he was skipping beats for both of them. His quick gasp of denial spills forth from wet, glistening lips she's riveted too and Stefanie doesn't bother restraining her groan, aching. Unbearably cold abruptly, she shivers as she surveys him, eyes trailing undisclosed want down his neck, bare chest, chiseled abs...

"Can't?" She echoes. Her lower lip she sucks into her mouth, savoring the droplets almost without thought. Her fangs were out (there was no stopping them), but she's still. For all her thirst, desire, ache - hunger (but she shouldn't think about that yet), she stays where he left her. Skirt spread (the one with the dainty yellow flowers, that went with the sweater he implored her not to stain, before he ripped the shirt anyway), and mushed where he'd been laying. Her bra (tan lace, matching yellow flowers) was mussed where he'd grabbed it, her bare stomach glistens from his sweat. Her eyes blown. Red.

Maybe he had more restraint than he was giving himself credit for: he hadn't licked his lips clean of the blood after all. Then again, it wasn't something to be proud of, the fact that a simple cut to his lips could drive him off the edge. Meanwhile Stef who couldn't be more than two days old as a vampire, stayed back by her own volition.   
  
She was challenging him of course, egging him on. She'd say anything to get his blood, or rather she wouldn't, she'd just take it wouldn't she? But why did she want him to take her blood too? Blood that was no longer her own, but once it was in her body it took nearly miraculous healing powers for humans because it sustained something that was already dead. But what did that blood do to a hybrid?

Can't, though, she tells herself as a wind tickles her hair, spraying the air again with coconuts. Not won't.

"You can, Tony." Her words were silk as much as her dress had been, but honest. "I can hear, you want to." That was a tad desperate, she thinks and changes tact smoothly. "Have you done or said anything yet that's driven me away?" Her eyebrow arches slowly as she hears herself saying what she'd thought a few days-that-were-years ago. "I'm not leaving you."   
  
Stefanie tells herself because she thought them before it was true: it wasn't her hunger talking. (She'd never manipulate Tony that way, surely?)

"And besides," she continues in a drawl now, a small smirk on her face, "you won't hurt me. I can prove it." Her eyes stay on his as she reaches her hand down her skirt, riveted. (She might pause to slide over wet fabric, soothe the ache he'd started to grant her before so rudely pulling away). Hooks her finger around the pin she had stuck in the side of it, and pulls her hand free, she lifts it to her neck and without shame slides the silver across sensitive, smooth skin.

It draws a shallow wake, maroon.  
  
He could find himself caring less and less as she reached for something hidden up her legs. Her words before hadn't actually been processed by his brain who was trying to push him forward and further away simultaneously and which wanted him to lick his lips. He almost did but for a wholly different reason.  
  
And then he was surging forward in a blink. She could have moved away if she wanted to, stopped him but she didn't, and yet his eyes never left that trail of blood that was sliding down her neck.    
  
His mouth latched on to her neck, hands gripping her shoulders with all his strength as he swallowed the blood, eyes closing as the hot liquid hit his tongue and then his throat. Sucking and sucking, a growl left his throat as the blood didn't flow as fast as he wanted it to, his hand reaching up to grab a fistful of her hair and yank her head to the side to expose her neck further, his actions not only ravenous but rabid.  
  
Proven right, triumph was drowned out only by the feeling of his mouth attaching itself to her neck after his tongue chased down the stray droplets. She hissed at the sudden weight and forced her chest up, pressing hard, porcelain skin into his. Still, she'd caught him. Both legs snap around him, hoisting herself up even as he seizes her shoulders; she drops her stilettos. One glimpse of his wild-eyes had her shivering again and she realizes briefly: temperature did affect her just as before. See, she thinks, not everything was different -- only...only good, things. That suction, lighting her with desire and relief, bloodstream swimming with abrupt pleasure.   
  
Veins snaking down her face as she inhales deep in that coppery smell and redness around his mouth, she slips one hand up his bare back, like she was soothing an unruly child. There-there, she'd say, but it was much better than "okay", it was...well, she'd say heaven, but it felt too warm, too sinful, too good to be anything but hell. He twists her neck, growl reverberating through her chest and humming still in her ears, vibrato.

At first there was nothing but the taste of the blood like there always was. Every other thought or knowledge quickly left his body, all motivation and purpose went with it save for one: to drink of the best tasting blood he'd ever tasted until he'd had his fill. And went the blood didn't flow as fast (he would later reason that it was because the blood wasn't being pumped by the heart) all he thought, all he considered was using his teeth to rip the cut wider and deeper, or maybe tear off the head completely like he'd done the time before, when the blood gushed out into his mouth and the floor, which he'd licked clean as well.

Her heels twist around each other, she clamps down on his back, and she flips. Rivaling him was something she reveled in. She lands on top, the chair rocking them dangerously  fast - ripping her neck away from him and taking his with one hand. Squeezing, her eyes cloud over as she looks down at him, hips still grinding in to his with slow precision as she leans forward to lap the blood from his face like a kitten with milk. Her tongue scrapes his chin. Her face hovers over his with her wide eyes flashing blue again as she looks at him -- truly, deeply, looks without fear or shame. There's a beat of his heart, which smacks her chest. Ignited, she presses one, messy and hard kiss to his ravenous mouth.

But then he was flipped, and he growled again, having forgotten who it was he was feeding from. His chest rose and fell, breath hard and gasping; he had hardly breathed while he drank, and now she held his neck in her hand. His own hands reached out but as she ground down on him, he gripped her hips, pulled her closer, feeling her wetness through her underwear and his slacks.  
  
His eyes were still fixed on the wound of her neck, repairing itself in front of his eyes now that his mouth wasn't there, keeping it from sewing back together. It came closer as she leaned in and started licking his face. He still wanted more, wanted to rip her apart to get to it, but as she pulled back and looked at him with blue eyes, not red and black, it softened him enough or gave him enough pause from his murderous thoughts to be able to respond the way you were supposed to when you were kissed like that.  
  
As long as he was drinking from her...well, fair play, right? They always did everything equal. And besides, now he had her blood in his system. So she knew whatever happened, he wouldn't die (permanently). No, he'd just become a vampire too, and Stefanie could feel in his heat and pounding heart how horrific that was to him.  
  
(If anything was going to be capable of stopping her, it was that thought, she'd reasoned. The thought if she didn't keep control, she'd make him a monster, the thing he hates most).   
  
She pops her hand free from his neck to sink her teeth into him instead.  
  
His hands slid around, taking her cheeks in his grip and squeezing as he sighed against her mouth, feeling the taste of blood transfer from his mouth to hers. But then it was over, and her mouth was at his neck, fangs sliding in.  
  
He gasped out an 'ah!' with the remaining breath he had left of an inhale he felt like he took years ago. His hands went to her hips again, gripping hard and at first tried to push away. The point where her mouth and his neck connected throbbed but the pain ebbed away until his hands gripped to keep her pressed against him, and his eyes drifted close with another sigh.

Stefanie couldn't get over the taste, felt like she had discovered the world's best kept secret. All these horror tales of gore were as accurate as the Brothers Grimm were to old wives tales, she thinks as his blood swirls in her mouth. _They just wanted to keep it to themselves_ , she thinks greedily. The pleasure was immense- intoxicating, dizzying, as if Tony was honey, chocolate, wine and absinthe not to be consumed until Christmas morning. But then, she had always loved the forbidden.

His pulse was rapid, like the flutter of wings. Stefanie wants it. There's fear on his tongue and she revels. His sigh was light but heavy with gratification and she presses herself against him, already hard in between her naked thighs. So greedy, Tony, she almost chuckles if it would not interrupt blood flow. Her hips revolve in his hands, her knees pressing hard into his side. So impatient, too. Even in the way he fed--drinking so hard and fast, she flashes back to secondary school, behind the Quidditch stands. "Ah-ah."

What was he, a misbehaving child to her reprimanding schoolteacher? He had already done that before, with an actual school teacher, and he had to say that he wasn't a big fan of the game. It wasn't enticing enough, he must have figured, but then again Stefanie didn't have him call her Professor Ricard, but rather an entirely different title.  
  
It felt like that now. She was on top after all, drinking from him, grinding against him, freeing his length (way too slowly, he groaned near her ear), and keeping him nearly immobile in the swinging seat. He briefly wondered, now that thoughts that were focusing on the pleasure overtook those that had wanted her dead, if that was how she'd felt when he had her hands behind her, leaving her unable to move. It's not like that stopped her from trying.  
  
That was probably the main difference between them, then. In the end, he was much too weak to put up a fight, and less ashamed to admit in the moment how much he enjoyed it. Later, it would be a different story. But now, now he would savor, and he would enjoy.

Wrenched free, she scolds him as he tries to compel her to increase her speed. A sharp nail taps his lips, and she lowers her mouth, finding a new artery. Still, Stefanie snaps her bra off with a flick of her finger to reward his compliance. Preening her chest against his, she slides her hand slowly down his arm, across his stomach, and drags the zipper down. Greedy, impatient...and such a liar, she muses through her nose and breathes into sensitive, chafed skin her swirling tongue was painting red. Tony craves as a starved animal, but maybe she didn't mind. His fierce denial of his own desire only adds to the thrill of proving him wrong.   
  
It was easy to slide her fangs in now, as he tries only to pull her closer, surrenders so completely he floods her throat. Deep in drink, her mind is in a haze as if she'd been in the cups for days less minutes. She envies him, casually so full of life. That fluttery pulse was weakening - bending him to her will - and it stirs her own heart to beat once, rushing his fire through her veins, warming her skin with that she stole. And she relishes it, the theft making it somehow better, worth more. They do say you don't know what you had until it's gone, don't they?

He lifted his hips off the seat, grinding against her again but more drawn out, slow but hard and purposeful instead of the frenzied from before as she kept draining him. As he felt his heartbeat slow, his breathing heavier, he turned his head, hissing in her ear, "Stop..." he sighed despite it, his body trying to betray his mind but it would betray him to his death. "That's enough, you're gonna..." he exhaled, "make my dick soft." And kill him, but priorities.

He savors, but he knew his limits. And reminding Stefanie that if he were left bereft of blood she would have to finish herself off seemed a more effective strategy than snapping her neck (which he did contemplate for a few seconds), as he wanted to get off too (that was it, the only reason, after all that 's what they were back to).

It's pretty much the last thing she wants to do when he gasps at her to stop and she moans into his neck, irritable. But she wants it, she needs it, she couldn't live without it -- actually, no, the fact she wants it, that was all that mattered. No-one got to tell her no now, they couldn't hold her back, they couldn't make her stop--oh, he wasn't breathing.  
  
And oh, all right, he did need blood flow for that and it would ruin -all- her fun if he was softened. That convinces her. Nose trailing across his jaw as she lifts, she retracts her fangs, mouth drawn in a pout, a spoiled princess being told she couldn't have the last piece of cake. Only her eyes widen as she watches the bite-marks turn pink and rosy, and she grins a smirk witch wicked, no fangs necessary to look medieval Lady Macbeth. Was that his hybrid blood or hers in his system, removing his pain?   
  
A mad little giggle on her lips, she nods and kisses his mouth, lips soft again in apology and want equally. A quick dart, and she frees him from those church-appropriate slacks, slips her skirt off and kneels over him, rubbing their arousals together, but refusing to satisfy.  
  
Stef backed away from his neck, and he breathed in relief, the stinging of pain coming back the moment her mouth stopped sucking but it went away quick enough. He kissed her, trying to chase after the taste of blood, his body in a constant struggle to get more and more of it. Though now it was paying more attention to his other needs as his slacks were ripped down and out of the way, her skirt and underwear similarly gone, as they finally touched without any interference; somehow the biggest tease of them all.  
  
He found his last bit of resistance, the smallest part of him that still had enough pride and stubbornness to have it his way, and used that for strength as he lifted his hips off the seat in one hard movement and pushed into her the same way, his hands on hips helping to slam her back down, skin smacking deliciously against each other as the sweat that had begun to form on him wet her skin as well. It was easy enough to pretend she was sweating as well.  
  
It had nearly killed her (a bad joke), to not immediately grant herself relief but something stalled her - something left her hovering, teasing, tantalizing, playing, seducing - but never satisfying. When Tony slammed into her of his own accord, she didn't think another moment on her hesitation. He stole her away and she only let out a relieved gasp, a habitual release of the pleasure he brings her.  
  
Actually, pleasure was an understatement. It was his blood that fills her with life now. The fact seems to have her skin teeming with joy hitherto unknown, senses alive with forbidden, honeyed passion -- the darker the horizon seemed to get, the brighter her gaze.

Tony's mouth fell open for her with every movement. Sliding inside and grinding against her pleasure had him groaning, his skin almost on fire. It didn't make sense how he could still have the strength, how his lungs weren't failing him or how he wasn't straining himself with too little blood but at the same time this, them together like this, made the most sense out of anything in a long time.

She was glad, she realized, glad she might have led him to the water but no rider made a horse drink that didn't want to. And there was a primal rush to being taken so abruptly, the claim of an animal lit as alive in desire as she.

Tony also parts his lips to inhale, but that wasn't as often. Who needed to breathe anymore? That didn't seem as important as the moans relinquished into her waiting mouth, their lips taut and everywhere, tongues darting out as the greedy little minxes they were, unable to give up the search for their tastes without a fight.  
  
The swing shifts beneath them at the quick jerk; she takes his shoulders and yanks up, not moving an inch. He shifts inside her all the same, making her groan as she wraps arms around his neck and clings to him. Their mouths meet for a hard-fast kiss, but she breaks free as they grind, eyes shut tight from the thrill and mouth muttering in awe. "Josef, Maria, Jesus -" Oh, and it was a damn good thing she didn't need to breathe, because he'd snatched that from her too -, " _Madonna_ , Tony."

The last was a whisper, shouted near his ear.   
  
His hips continued to rise and fall, his hands traveling up her side again to knead her bare breasts, her nipples hardened from the arousal not the air, and from the constant rubbing they'd done against his own chest. He pulled and pinched as she gasped out names in his ear, breath that was somehow hot hitting his ear and driving him wild; he was so sensitive there, and she knew it.  
  
His name fell from her lips. They had made a game of their names before. Withholding them, changing them, teasing them out of the other person's mouth. And maybe it was still a game, but given that she had said it the same way -as if nothing had happened, as if they were still on her balcony or in Roma with the rising sun- Tony's own exhale of her name, a shuddering _'Stefanie'_ , had too much relief in it than he would ever feel comfortable discussing out loud.*  
  
Was it her or him that drove this wicked pace? Stef couldn't tell anymore. Up and down, bouncing like on a naughty carnival ride, knees bruising as they strike the wood again and again. His hands abandoned her hips as hers explore his back, wandering over hard, hot planes of toned olive skin. It didn't matter, she decides as he gasps her name in response. It's the first time she had heard him say it in two days that didn't sound like the end of something. And it was the first time he said it all day that it didn't sound like he say saying good-bye.  
  
So could anyone really blame her? If in the haze of (what had to look like) a blur of skin porcelain and steel, hair blonde and black to anyone without their heightened senses (and red, red, so much red)? If in the first forty-eight hours of the emotional roller coaster hell of transformation (if in the first seventy-two hours since she'd lost her brother?) -- when he says her name like a prayer, shuddering beneath her - in her - there was a tear that crystalizes in her icy eyes and slips down her cheek?  
  
Blame her, no. But Stefanie won't mention it anyway, would deny it on pain of her fangs. (And no, she did not shut her eyes holding on to that). It's gone fast enough in the heat of her release. That seemed to come over her the moment she heard her name. Shudders and shivers and moans she couldn't name rock her blinding-white washed world as she stays wrapped around him coming down.

As she squeezed around him, it pushed him over the edge he'd already been teetering over. Spending himself inside in time with his last few strokes, he falls back on the seat as he breathes in heavily and needy. Not that he usually agreed with woman-beating scumbags but how were you supposed to breathe with no air?  
  
He'd have to evolve pass that, he dimly realized, if he had any hope of keeping up with the woman intertwined in his arms. His hands had fallen from her chest to hold onto her back, her own rising and falling from the movement of his own lungs trying to catch his breath again.   
  
Her lips meet the side of his as she whispers again, just, "Yes, Tony?" She could not say it again: that she was right there, because she knew he was right all along to deny that.   
  
Besides, she was always so much better at proving things with actions than words.  
  
He breathed against her skin, at the side of her lips, looking up at the ceiling as he licked his lips. As if it were just a conversation. What did she want to hear, that she was right? He really could drink from her, let her drink from him, make a hot affair out of it? She was right, that was true, but more importantly, she was her. Her with fangs, but her. Tony would say 'fuck me' but she already had; the thought causes a small chuckle to leave his lips.  
  
Stil her, still here, so he admits with a breathless whisper.

"I think I saw a rainbow at one point."  
  
At that, she smiles, brilliant and white and ... happy. These rapid swings of mood were going to get as tiresome as when they'd come monthly, she thinks absurdly, her fingers crawling up his back. Realizing she might have drawn blood when dragging nails aside his spine in the throes of exhilaration she keeps her hands down and wordlessly watches the thing scratches melt away. Fascinating. She pulls her hand around, licks the tip of her finger clean, relying on their mutual bliss and exhaustion to momentarily stay either of them from murder.  
  
Or perhaps she was just relying on how happy he'd made her the moment he called back to what she'd said to him again--only this time, as a tease. A nostalgic, poignant reminder that this was far from the first moment they'd spent like this. Her hand lifts from her lips to cup his cheek, soft. (She didn't dare stifle his breath further, as he seemed to be fighting so hard for it). Grazing her thumb around his lips, she nods, still smiling.

"Did you? I'm fairly sure I did too you know -- at least, blinding white is just like, multi-colored isn't it?"

Her hands were soft despite the fact that moments ago, or maybe eons ago, they'd kept him immobile and moved him with ease. It sent a different shiver down his spine to feel those soft hands cup his face before she replied. It garnered a smile of his own to match hers.

"Yeah, additive...color and the beam of light through a prism and all that jazz."

"So then I did." She says as if she's not confirming seeing a rainbow, that thing she'd reassured him a literal lifetime ago they might still have, as if it was not her saying they were as equally matched as ever (more so). He runs his fingers over her back, her Italian lover with eyes regaining their bright blue easily and she thinks madly it had always been a favorite color of hers, even if she favored the red and black. House Targaryen, and what not, she thinks with a tiny giggle.

She curves an eyebrow up, resting them back against the swinging chair back, but did not move otherwise away from him or off of him (anymore than she was thinking suddenly how his seed had nothing to take root in now if she'd  _wanted_ a child, which she didn't, but...). Instead, she kisses him again, this to the bridge of his nose so he could continue capturing his breath. "I'm not one to say _I-told-you_ -so of course but...also, damn, have you been holding back on me. 

He chuckled again, passing his fingers across her back idly now as they laid back against the seat. Tony refused to even move the necessary inches it'd take to slip out of her. His nose scrunches as she kisses it before he remarks, "And yet that's exactly what that sounded like." He teased a moment before smirking, "And yet I'm the one who's gonna be sore in the morning."  
  
He ran his fingers over her back like she was precious and she threads a hand through his hair too, toying with the shell of his ear, amused.  
  
"Can't help what it might have sounded like." She said easily. "But," her nail flicked the bottom of his ear, chin tilting to give her words that quality of "matter of fact."

"I'm pretty sure I'll be sore as well."   
  
He felt over-sensitized or whatever the correct term was, because he clearly could not think straight or curved after that. If anything, it was a miracle he could still think.  
  
But he really wasn't thinking was he? If he had, he would have stood and left already, but right at that moment not a thousand vampires and werewolves that would team up with the sole purpose to get him to move would be able to pry him from this spot, or pry his arms from around Stefanie.  
  
Hairs stood where she spoke near his ear, another breathy chuckle leaving his lips at her retort. It was a good compromise, he thought; she didn't say the words out loud directly so he didn't have to admit she was right. Good, because there was only so much emasculation he could take.  
  
"Really?" He asked, genuinely curious as he traced an idle shape with his finger along her spine. "You'll have to let me know. Besides," his grin was soft, and lazy, "been holding back on myself too. Haven't really fucked someone so...ha, durable, before."  
  
She chuckles at the question again, freeing one hand just to toss her hair back over her shoulder. It was bunched together and knotted, she notes with mild irritation that his lazy tracing draws away, so she forgets it, letting the yellow strands fall over her back as she nods absently.

"I still bruise, and" she cocks an eyebrow, "you did kind of slam me. Few times. Maybe not all the way til morning but, healing still requires the wound in the first place, Tony."   
  
Despite the technical gruesome nature of those words, she felt higher than a kite and was smirking too much too care anymore. It was just the reality now. And besides, she was lost in how gorgeous his blue eyes were when hazy with satisfaction...or maybe it was just satisfaction she'd caused.   
  
At his statement she realized abruptly he might have been the first one she had slept with since - but there was someone she'd slept with in between their last time on a porch, and her throat dries momentarily. She didn't want to think about Ansel now though, or what he might say when he discovered what she'd done. (It was enough for her that he was alive right now, otherwise, she knows only too well she should stay away from wolves at the moment - until she had better control).

"Yes but you heal very quickly, so I assuuumed pesky sore feelings would go away quick enough." It made sense, really. What was being sore except the muscle healing itself too?  
  
He didn't think it was enough a thought to cause a shift, not right now, in Stefanie's demeanor but it had for a split second in Tony's eyes then it was gone so fast he might have convinced himself he had imagined it.

Chuckling, she balances on one knee and looks down at her scraped knees, wondering idly if he was right and when she moved, the quick healing would make her ache disappear.* We'll have to see then. It is a _wood_ swing, see." She liked that, she decides. Saying 'we', still, as if nothing had happened.  
  
She chuckles again, genuinely surprised (and a bit pleased).

"Mind-boggling to me." She flutters her eyelashes at him, dropping her hand back from her hair to his chest, rubbing it slowly. "How you ever managed to keep control then, I mean. Because...damn." She whistles, low and smirking, fond as she looks at him through hooded eyes. "You wanted to." It was a guess, but a fairly educated one considering the sinful things he'd just done to her body - was still doing, actually. He hadn't moved yet.

"Didn't you?"   
  
And now he was ignoring it, not only for his sanity but for hers as well. Oddly enough, he felt much more comfortable discussing his sin out loud that whatever thought might have crossed her path.  
  
"Wanted to keep in control? Yeah, well, didn't want to fuck someone to death." He chuckles once. "Or what? Wanted to..."

Of course, she knew there were other reasons she'd wanted to come to the D'Grey manor. As the creature of hunger, temptation, envy and sin that she was, it was only too likely that while learning control she kill again - and again. No, she did not blame Tony for her brother - and truthfully, she did not blame him for herself either (why blame him for what she did not regret?). It still seemed fitting to her that if she was going to lose control with anyone, it should be him. It was equally true that if she had anyone left she would be able to stop with it was Antonio D'Grey. Because he didn't deserve to go quickly? (Because she couldn't let him go.) (But was that just because of how goddamn good he tasted, that she wanted to savor him, or...) Oh, she didn't know anymore, her head was spinning as she gazes at the marks she'd left on him. Bruises and bite marks. Tony wouldn't mind if she started to sing, right? He did it all the time.  
  
Suffice to say, she thinks with amusement, her wants had been layered before the transition and now were on crack.  
  
She shifts her head quickly, hand on his shoulder brushing around pink indents and red kisses to clean without pressing on sore wounds.

"No. Wanted to let go." Leaning down, she meets her mouth to his shoulder to kiss free of pressure, affectionately like a cat nosing at it's mate. Or a dragon at Dany's breast, but details. Maybe it was an apology.

"Yes." He admitted it quietly, as if he were parting with a heavy secret that weighed on his heart, or rather, and more appropriately, admitting to a dreadful sin. Seemed ridiculous, that out of all the sins he'd committed, he should be worried about succumbing to his basest temptations. Actually, he was more worried about admitting that he'd never wanted to fight it all along. It was hard trying to be a good person. Maybe he should just give up. Let evil suck out his life force like Stefanie had.  
  
"But isn't that true of everyone to an extent?" He took comfort in knowing all humans were sinners, that it wasn't just him. Some even more than others! But now that they had driven the Death Eaters out of Paris, and out of the world permanently, hopefully, the lesser of two evils has become the biggest once more.  
  
He didn't want to focus on that, his brain was supposed to be turned off, dammit, not working at hyper speed.  
  
She rests her cheek over his heartbeat, tilting her head as if to clear the thought and murmurs almost without thought.

"You taste like cinnamon..."

So Tony focused on her mouth on his shoulder, and then he turns his head to look at her better as she comments on his taste. He smiles. "I think you might be biased there, cara." He smirks, "I bet I taste like you want me to taste."

Like everything good she had in her life. The vampire Pascali had once told Tonio, while he'd been in the middle of his infiltration, that blood tasted different to all vampires, but always the same (though it did vary from person to person); it was like a personalized cocktail. Then again, Pascali was known to pull on his leg often.

"So I'm biased." It was spoken tiredly, with a shrug of amusement and delight. Who cares? He tasted good, better than the choir man for all his godliness, better than the Deacon who had been next, or the innocent woman and Marcus who had come before. Like vintage Arbor wine, she might have teased, though how that went well with cinnamon she couldn't tell. He tasted good, and he wasn't dead, so she could have more (though maybe not right now). That's what mattered.  
  
"To an extent," she agrees, "but you're still more than anyone else." Stefanie would deny that double meaning for...well, all eternity now, perhaps.

 _Sure he was_ , he almost retorted with a hint of sarcasm but he figured he had said enough bitter and unkind things in the last 12 hours. He could do with a break, especially when they had both silently agreed to pretend that everything was alright and that nothing was the matter, at least for as long as they remained intertwined on this seat. Stepping foot back on the porch floor again (for his feet hovered a few inches above) would only serve to have reality creep in once more.

"You taste like..."  
  
He searched his thoughts, hazy as they were, hesitantly because he was wary of returning to that mindset. Then he just exhaled out what popped in.

"Joy."

Eyes were fluttering between shut and open, gaze torn between watching her fingers on his chest, the sunset, or succumbing to blissful darkness once more. Her cheek sticks to his chest. His sweat, she thinks, not the tears (she hadn't shed those, after all). The lazy smile on her lips lifts abruptly at his one word explanation and her fingers and thumb all stop brushing. Joy. Was that what he wanted from her? Or was that why she'd filled with it as he filled with her?   
  
He still was full in her, even if softer now, actually. And it felt so damn good she refused to let it go. So she chuckles instead, just once, light and airy - but not dismissive, never that.

"Well, I'm happy." It was spoken warily, again on a silky throat. I think, it seems to say behind her words, because she'd forgotten how to be joyful. "At this moment." That was more truthful. She breathes against his skin forgetting again it wasn't necessary, breathes to inhale his sweet and bitter scent.

"What does joy...taste like?"   
  
Another double meaning she wasn't going to think about.  
  
He smiled as well when she said that she felt happy right at that moment. That was the trick, small bursts of happiness in between all of the dismal shit going on, to keep your sanity semi-intact.  
  
"Almonds." He joked at first, referencing the candy bar and as he idly played with strands of her hair, he tried to explain himself. "When I drink, I don't really...taste, not until after, the blood I...feel it? It feels like getting up in the morning to fresh made pizelles and coffee. Like scoring a hot chick's number." He grinned at that. "Like eating cupcakes at balcony. Playing Cluedo with friends and turning it into a drinking game. Like a friend coming over to tuck you in when you drunk-text them. Like realizing your brother came to your graduation after all. And that your mother buys a cupcake every year and sings happy birthday to a picture of you."

The way he describes his feeding was fascinating her. Did she recall cinnamon on her tongue, because she wanted to remember her mother's Christmas buns with clarity as sharp as the rest of her senses now? The Arbor wine (or what she'd pretended was that) because of the first time she'd snuck a glass of it at dinner at thirteen and stayed up all night reading the Clash of Kings? That wine stain was still on her book. The honey -- well, she, Hans when he was still Lawrence, Marcel had used to put it on toast for each other on picnics...the absinthe, her smirk turns wicked as she thinks of those days in university.  
  
It was hard to hold on to those images, she realizes, they seem so dull in comparison to the last forty-eight hours. They beat out only the memory of her actual death, which she can't remember much at all. It angers her, the ease with which they slip away, but his smile and idly playing with her hair calms any sudden urge quickly.  
  
That, and she can't help but soften at the memory he explains. Cupcakes on the balcony...a mother absent and still loving you...your brother at graduation after all. Arching an eyebrow slowly she asks, "Wait." Her voice was hushed. "Did Olivier come then?"

For he couldn't be talking about Hans, even though her brother had come to her graduation. (He'd been wearing a suit even, holding her red cap when she went looking for it and a smirk wider that she'd ever seen. She'd hit him with the cap. Then hugged him for what might well have been hours, and yet she thinks she should have held longer). He couldn't mean that though; besides the balcony with cupcakes, the rest of the memories had clearly been private to him. They were spoken so softly she can't help but feel at peace. "I'm glad."

Tony chuckles and then nods once, not willing to dislodge themselves from the position. "Yeah, the fucker was in the audience, and the ever-dramatic Olivier D'Grey decides to tell me by plopping a picture on his phone of me wearing my cap and gown." Tony gathered he must have looked terrible that night when he was drunk and Olivier had decided to throw him a bone to keep him from killing himself. Not that he would have but.

"Ever the performer, that one. You're right, he never misses a cue in his life." The words were goodnatured - kind, even, as she thinks it was mean of Olivier to wait so long to tell him. (Or maybe he'd thought Tony didn't want him there. Maybe he came at the last minute because he just wanted to be there, see his brother graduate, but couldn't stand Tony looking at him in shame and so he'd left).   
  
Yeah, either way - Stef was glad she simply made a joke, her hand still brushing over his heart. She sits in silence, surprised first that he started to answer.   
  
He swallows quickly before continuing, "It feels like everything that's ever made you happy all at once, pouring down your throat. It's not pleasurable, I don't get turned on...I just feel incredibly joyous." He exhales before frowning.

"Then I taste death."  
  
Pressing a soft kiss near his lips as he exhales, she turns her cheek again. Only to lift as he finishes, shivering and lifting back up as slowly as she'd been lowering. Her eyes stay on his, even as she trembles in his embrace, for once without shame. "...You mean, you feel, death? Or taste it because they - until me - died?"

She hears the uptick in his heart; lays her hand over it in minor concern and doesn't blink away. "I just...I don't remember that part, very well." Because she hadn't died, dammit, she'd been _changed_. "I mean I remember him feeding," she shrugs it away, rubbing the hand to her neck, "and then...waking, pretty much."  

"More of the second one." He admits even softer, suppressing a shudder and then explains. "The last bit of blood, the very last drop, and maybe its just because my guilty catholic mind can't let me love in peace...but the very last drop is always bitter, and yet painfully sweet. It wasn't like a corpse, I always thought death would taste like rotting garbage exposed to a hot Italian sun for too long. It's not.  
  
Death is...too much of a good thing, too much life. Like the person's soul keeps clinging onto that single drop, and then I...devour it. And it feels like I'm swallowing every single stolen moment I robbed, until I'm choking on it."  
  
He snapped himself out of his explanation and then frowned, just realizing. He tilted his head to better look at her, "Wait, him? I thought...didn't Chantel turn you?"  
  
It's not until "it's not" that she realizes - she already knew too well what he was going to say. All the power, the wonder -- it had slipped away from her when she'd seen the girl was gone in her arms, limp. The last drops on her tongue had turned bitter. Just as Tony describes...in poetry that reminds her he'd signed Daniella's erotica, the one he wrote. She swallows on a dry throat.  
  
Then nods, eyes shadowed and says softly.

"Then it seems to me, you have already every incentive to stop before that very last drop." She says that simply, without judgment, trying to find some bloody positive thing in what he'd told her. Because that was Stefanie, and she was shifting slightly in the seat to let him lay with her more comfortable without slipping free, and that was what she did. Make our own rainbows, as she'd told him before.

"Every incentive, every reason, every desire...just not enough will, I suppose." He swallowed, all at once feeling so inadequate though he knew that Stef was not judging him (he had already played the pot to her kettle today, there was no need for a role-reversal as they'd done that too in their tryst).

"That's because," and it was flatly spoken with a teasing grin beneath eyes serious, her finger tapping his shoulder again, "you're feeding like a green boy." Her eyebrow cocks up. "Like all you want is to come." Licking her bottom lip, her finger falls from his, hand resting on his chest, allowing, "And yes, I do see the irony of my being the one to say that, new born and all but it is true." She winks. "Call it feminine instinct."

It was a joke but she was also partially serious. Tony was clearly blacking out as much as she had in the haze of this joy and she knew, her pressing for foreplay first had - in both instincts- led to heightened release for them. Instinct, intuition, wishful thinking, take your pick.

Tony couldn't help but to roll his eyes at that, making a mocking face before sticking his tongue out. "Congratulations, I'm cured." He shook his head and rolled his eyes again for good measure, poking her ribs.

And then he was frowning and she blinks, startled. She shakes her head slowly, sucking on her bottom lip as she admits. "Er, no. Chantel talked to me first, yes. I ... asked her. And she said that was up to her sire, so, he did it. And then...then when I woke up, and there was..."  
  
She pauses abruptly.

He nodded as she explained, his eyebrows lifting slowly from the lowered furrow they had dug themselves in. Who was Chantel's sire? He wasn't sure, but that wasn't what they were discussing so he let his curiosity linger without satisfaction for now.

Then lifts her hand from his chest and rubs under her eye, looking down at where they were still joined, wishing very hard she could do more than squeeze her inner walls to keep him there. Didn't stop her, of course. Then she meets his eyes again and speaks plainly, in soft words, arms still around him.

She lifts her hand from his chest, not realizing how comforted he had become by its touch (figures) and then stops his idly fingering of her hair at the same moment as he looks at her, waits for her to finish. She died, and woke, and then?

"Tony...you told me once, what you'd done, on your worst day. I...realize now how brave that was." Her head tilts as she looks at him without blinking.* I thought I did, because I was..scared at the time too, but I honestly have never felt - unsafe with you. Still. I did not realize how much courage that took.   
  
Then the direction she took left him so surprised he had to blink wide eyes as if he were some disproportionally drawn anime character. He was brave but he acted cowardly, oh the fickleness of her. His smile began as amusement before it finished in genuine happiness and relief.  
  
"You know what's bad? I almost had to ask which of the several days you actually meant."

"Well, no worse than the fact that it ranked only top five of messes I'd seen you know."

"Oh cara, please," he started again after a laugh once she reminded him of what she had said pertaining that day, "don't use up all your emasculating material at once."

"I'm not emasculating," she argues first because it was her custom, their custom, and she couldn't let it just get away. "Rather, I want you to be more the man, less the boy." Her fingers stop drumming anyways as she tells him the rest.

Tony decided to leave the boy/man comment as it was, knowing that nothing he could say would help his situation out in the slightest, not even a witty retort to remind her how much of a man she must already think him to be.

The chuckle that left his lips wasn't amused but it wasn't bitter either. It just was. Tony almost said that he was glad she felt safe with him but she had said she'd never felt unsafe. A double negative, and he'd never known a double negative to be used casually.

"And what made you realize it?," He asked softly, wanting to know.  
  
Her lips quirk up and she drums her fingers over his heart. The sun had finally set, she realized by the lamps lighting themselves behind them. Good old D'Grey manor.  
  
Her words were shy now, but he'd asked softly and she wanted to tell him as he'd once told her. Even if she was terrified he'd hate her ever more, because Tony didn't claim not to be a hypocrite (as if he hate wasn't truly of himself and projected). And because any sane person would think it was monstrous, wasn't it?

"The amount of courage I feel I must gather to speak again."   
  
That she said plain as well. "I...you need human blood to complete the transition, and he would have taken me hunting but...the first girl I came across after I woke...I succumbed. She didn't do anything to me. I didn't ... mean to hurt her. I just was on overdrive; she smelled so good, and I was so hungry, and I just ... snapped. It wasn't until after she was...she was dead, that I thought I needed - help, and not from him, because clearly human life means next to nothing to him, but it...does to me, I want it to, I do, and I just couldn't stay there if that's what he meant to teach me. So I came here, after wandering...all night and into the morning, I just... I cremated her, so no questions would be asked, and ..."

She breathes out, her eyes suddenly clouded and heavy and she felt herself leaning in to him, desperately tightly now. But she refuses to let go. "I didn't mean to." She says it softly, eyes locked on his, her forehead bent. "I didn't mean to, but I killed her, Tony."  
  
And then things darkened for them once more. Tony didn't mean literally, though the sun had set and that was only completely obvious to him as Stefanie didn't suffer from visual impairment any longer. Stefanie admitted that she had taken a life already as a vampire.  
  
This might have sunk in harder earlier today. While he was safely up on his pedestal, able to wag a finger reproachfully without repercussion. But he had proved, to both and Stef and himself, that if Stefanie was a monster he was every bit her match. And maybe they were monsters, for creatures of heaven they surely weren't, but it'd be more akin to Frankeinstein's monster. A creature with more morals in his right pinky than most humans he came across.  
  
And even though he was wary, Stefanie had felt instant remorse and had sought out not her maker's help (who was probably some self-appreciating cocky douchebag) but theirs...his.  
  
If anything he only held her tighter, his head nodding in slow understanding, and in acceptance. Leaning further in to press a kiss to her forehead, he sighed against her skin and then barely pulled back to whisper.

"Valar Morghulis."  
  
Stefanie went still, surprised as she thinks he might be drawing her closer when she thought he'd slip out (was he hardening again...?), might be looking at her with something akin to acceptance. It's all she wants to believe, frankly. But it was dreadfully hard to do so when she knew how Tony felt: it was the way she had, it was why two deaths were now weighing on her (the first, her brother's and the second, this girl whose ID would have burned with her body, of course, before she'd remembered to check). It was...the right way to think: murder was wrong and unforgivable, demons were evil (but surely that wasn't what she was, for a transition meant to save herself and her brother from any further harm?).   
  
But instead he kisses her forehead, murmuring in Valyrian that phrase "all men must die" and she might have wept from the joy of it. A few tears certainly appear in her eyes that flash so quickly in her swell of happiness, but she ignores them in favor of a kinder smile and she nods abruptly, quickly, over and over and over again like an eager (green boy) bobble head and then kisses his cheek.

"But I'm not a man." She whispers back, loving Dany's line more in the show in this particular moment. Stef kisses his other cheek. "And first we live."   
  
Her hips were slow in the circle around him even as she stays bearing down so he did not slip free. Hand over sensitive skin, his heart to hear his slow, steadying breath - feel, as much as hear - she kisses him once, and all right. Maybe now she has to brush a few tears from her eyes.

"Thank you." It was soft.  
  
It must be because he saw the weight on her heart through her eyes. Weren't the eyes the window to the soul, or were they the door? But he knew how the death of an innocent could do to a person who allowed themselves to feel the guilt and regret rather than to shut themselves away from the pain.  
  
His hand passes through her hair and down her back, caressing again as she nodded and watched as her eyes became glassy with tears that began to gather at the corners of her eyes but that still refused to drop. If he could describe Stefanie with a simple sentence, that would be...one of his attempts, because he could never, ever, do that.  
  
She kisses each cheek and then his lips, and he cupped the side of her neck with his free hand to keep her lingering for a few moments longer and then he nods as well to her small statement of gratitude, knowing the feeling was more intense than the words.

"I meant it when I said I have faith in you, and that I would help you, and that I would stay." His hand fell from her face to seek her own, and intertwine his fingers with hers like he'd wanted to do at the church.

He was still there, he proves that even before his words did in the fact that whatever disappointment - whatever regret - had flashed across his eyes, up-ticked his heartbeat, he didn't move away. His lips linger. Hell, he still was inside her. Sliding her free hand back around his neck, craning to rest her forehead on his, she brushes her thumb against his pulse. So alive under her nail, she inhales shallow as if to breathe it in; she was sharing his life instead of steal it.  
  
"Doesn't mean I won't yell at you from time to time, definitely doesn't mean we won't try to kill each other." He grins, cheeky before he adds, "Just don't try too hard."  
  
He wasn't saying that the fact the girl was dead was okay. Instead, he acknowledged her guilt. Antonio knows he doesn't have to tell her it's wrong (because she already knew) and she'd thought he'd pull away when she admitted aloud what she did -- but instead he starts embracing her tighter, like he can hide her from the world. Making everything go away as he tangles their fingers together as tight as she imagines quilt strands, she squeezes and listens.   
  
And then she's chuckling, because he was right in that too: he didn't excuse what she'd done, just accepted it. Maybe she should have expected he could, as he'd be a damn hypocrite if he couldn't but, well, Tony had such a hard time accepting -himself-, she thinks. Licking at her bottom lip at his words, she retorts easily.

"I won't, it's easy. Just stop being so damn desirable."   
  
Her eyebrow actually wiggles against his. There's eyebrow communication for you, she thinks with a giggle. Her hand holds his tighter still.

"If I could turn off my sexual appeal..." he paused, licking his lips in a small smirk as he considered and then he shook his head quickly, wrinkling his nose up momentarily before chuckling, "nah, I still wouldn't. God gave me one blessing." He teased, it wasn't exactly one, but he was being playful maybe just out of the sheer fact that he could be, and that there was opportunity to be.  
  
"I should have told you before we left this morning." She admits, pulling back an inch. "I should have told you and Olivier before I walked in. I - well I needed out of the sun, but on the doorstep, then, I should have, and I'm sorry I didn't. I...know you and your brother haven't ... seen eye to eye on this and I'm sorry, that I put you in...another position to disagree, I really am."  
  
He lifted his eyebrows with a slight tilt of his head, moving her head with his. Yes, she should have but maybe it had been for the best after all that she was already inside and in the house. "You told me, that's what counts now."  
  
As for Olivier, Tony exhaled.

"Please, I take full advantage of the fact he wants me around." And so did he. It was a mutual understanding that they were more likely now to take some bullshit for the other person's sake. Not that this was bullshit (though not letting those 'friends' get arrested was).  
  
"Besides, we were getting along too well. Didn't know what to do with that, it's good to have a little tension again." He smiled and then pressed a soft kiss to her lips before feeling himself...stirring.  
  
"Mistress, I do believe I'm ready for round two."


	18. Brunch.

This brunch was such a conflict of feelings. On the one hand, the Brackner family was reunited, and Harper was there. Harper was literally standing right there! Lyndsi stuck at his side, a miracle as it caused her to for a time forget hostess duties, they were talking to Sandor and Rosalia. On the other hand, probably the hand holding the mimosa she pleaded Jimmy to make a little stronger for her, there was obviously one Brackner missing. The absence was noticeable, at least to Zoe it was.  
  
When she had arrived first at the manor, she was naturally asked where Max was. Biting back a comment about how she didn't know because she didn't keep him on a leash, she had simply said very truthfully that he was at work. He was called to cover a shift. That part was true too, but only after Max had hassled their Chief into taking yet another double shift.  
  
The reactions from the family were what had caused Zoe to ask Jimmy for a stronger mimosa. Harper said nothing and revealed nothing, just turned away to keep talking to his father. Lyndsea, Zoe could tell, was relieved. Alcott looked almost exactly as his father with that general apathy. Sandor and Rosalia looked like one of them just won a bet about it, the youngest Brackner brother just shook his head. She didn't convince any of them, she didn't even convince Ric and Graciela, though for a second she thought she did when they asked about riding the rig (and riding the firemen). Then Zoe remembered Bianca telling her Ric knew already. At that moment she had thought there was not one Brackner that was in on the secret.  
  
Elena, as usual, served to be the exception to every rule and expectation. But, as usual, that wasn't exactly a good thing. The older woman looked ready to harass her with questions, and was only stopped after Zoe threw a look to her husband Benjamin and he grabbed her attention once more.  
  
The show must go on, however, and brunch continued. Brackners by blood, Brackners by marriage, and honorary Brackners gathered together in the humongous back porch as the youngest played with a football in the yard. Well, the youngest and Bianca who was proving to be the closest one so far to keep up with Alcott's 'refined reflexes'.  
  
Casting a look around, Zoe noticed the other honorary Brackner finishing a conversation with Benjamin. The older man kissed Eliza's forehead, and Zoe smiled. It wasn't only Harper that came back to them after all, and Benjamin loved Eliza like the granddaughter Elena probably thought she would one day officially be, if the Brackner matron was establishing a pattern with Zoe.  
  
Benjamin went to go rescue Hols, who stopped by for some time before she headed to work at the volunteer animal reservation, from the talons of his wife and Zoe approached Eliza who seemed likely to disappear into shadows any second now.   
  
"Hey Eliza," Zoe greeted with a smile, "tired of conversation yet?"  
  
"You must be the first person at this brunch that thinks that's possible," Eliza twists around, chuckling idly if a bit wearied at Zoe's question. Her heart seemed to be working twice as fast to work through even basic functions the longer this day went on, but she was slowly getting used to it. The number of people who wanted to ask her how she was, what she was doing, why she hadn't come back to England, what happened to her, how she was feeling -- it was flattering as much as exhausting, and frankly, a bit disconcerting. Her parents were staying with her, and the two of them being together at all would have been enough to blow her mind before you added in the well-wishers and the whole "coming back from the dead" thing.  
  
She still wasn't sure what her last name was either.  
  
But she smiles at Zoe, feeling an odd kinship. Anyone at a Brackner brunch was told they were extended family and even with her mother and father together, the only man Eliza remembered at age six was Harper. He'd been a fixture in her life even when he wasn't there, as Mrs. Brackner always wore her rings and talked now and again on fond memories. Any time Alcott had been drunk, he'd talked about him, about what he remembered and what people told him and idle musing on if Harper would be proud of him or not. The shade of Harper had turned into a living, breathing human being for her months before he had the opportunity to be that to his family again, but for her? She'd started including him in her family the moment she'd realized they had the same photograph. The same people they missed, family they wanted to go home to.  
  
Oh, and also, Zoe was close with Max (going to marry him, Alcott used to scheme and his grandmother evidently believed) and she was blonde, so they shared those things too.  
  
"It's nice to see them all together," Eliza commented, eyes on the football field with a faint smile. "I can remember brunches of just...three of us, plus Gramps and Elena. You'd never have known how large this family really is."  
  
"I knew. This is how it used to be before, well, almost," Zoe amended with a chuckle as she looked around again, "there was less kids around to make me feel old." And that was without mentioning Max's absence. Less grey hairs, more beer because there was no need to disguise day drinking with mimosas, less clothing even in the middle of December. Man, Zoe felt old.  
  
"It's weird isn't it?" She asked, turning to look back at Eliza, "Celebrating? Obviously there's plenty of reason for it...there's plenty of reason not to either." Which was the other reason this mimosa was a double. The next one was coming soon. It's no coincidence that alcohol was present both in celebrating and mourning.  
  
Heart skipping once, Eliza smiles harder until she feels it in her teeth. The thought of their parents as young kids was still a weird one (though Alcott had mentioned his parents were acting like teenagers and seeing them glued at the elbow right now, it was certainly true). Had Harper played football with them before? Bianca and Sandor were playing, it certainly made sense that Harper and Max would have gotten in on that.   
  
Max was 'working', however, Eliza reminds herself. The lack of any kind of reaction from Alcott or Harper at that news told her plainly it had come out. As it should. Stern with herself, she adds, there was no reason for that to be secret any longer as they both swear it meant nothing and keeping it secret would have been acting like it had.   
  
(Harper's face was enough to let her know it meant something to him but that, Eliza reflects sadly, was only to be expected as well).   
  
"It is a little," Eliza admits and then she hears herself laugh. "Do me a favor and don't ask any of the Brackners though, we'll have five new bad-puns on us in an instant about looking at the day half-full or half-empty. Wait, I think I mixed metaphors."   
  
Maybe that was because there was alcohol in her mimosa too, thank you Alcott.   
  
"I think you did," Zoe teased briefly with a chuckle and then took a sip of the glass that was half full, but quickly emptying. She wouldn't be surprised if Eliza was the same with her drink. When Zoe was sixteen she was always an inch away from alcohol poisoning 70% of the time and she only had about half of the reason Eliza did.  
  
Eliza was staying in France, Zoe had learned from Mary who had also been in France with Claude ever since the funeral, and Zoe had to be probably the only person here that understood it. Some people came back home because that's all they've ever wanted, like Harper, and others couldn't fathom ever returning to the way things used to be.  
  
"Especially after the funeral a few days ago," Zoe commented. She had gone to Sam's funeral, and was grateful that Gustav was not mentioned in the slightest. What made it the most sad, however, was how little people had actually showed. Eliza swivels, on guard. Her eyes dart over Zoe's face and several seconds pass before she's concluded Zoe was only commenting on it because it was relevant to why things were conflicting, happy and sad all bundled up at once. Well, Sam certainly was that for her.   
  
Looking to her shoes for a brief fluttery moment, she makes herself look up again before she nods and speaks. "I didn't realize you were there," Eliza's words were soft, uncertain. Of course, she hadn't stayed long. Sienna had fidgeted on her elbow the entire time and, certain that would blow her friend's cover, she'd gotten her out of there with Rory's help quickly.   
  
Zoe nodded, for she had seen Eliza there and it was no surprise. Magnus had told her after taking a peek at the eyewitness accounts how Sam had died. She had told Max under her breath that if that was the truth, she would eat her own bra, underwire and all.  
  
"I've known Ingrid some time and even though we're not best buddies or go get our nails done together, I wanted to support her. Quietly and subtly as that's the only way," Zoe nodded. She felt the most pain for Ingrid and her family. Brackners and Roswell might have a long rivalry but Noel's were natural peaceful mediators. Most of them.  
  
Going to Sam's funeral was the least she could do, Sienna insisted to the two of them. Rory still wanted to tell someone how he'd actually died. Luckily (maybe Luck had nothing to do with it), he listened to Eliza when she said that would only make things worse. Rory was still a lion as he'd ever been. He can't imagine how the truth could be wrong to say. She'd learned.  
  
"Devin went," Eliza continues, seeking Alcott over Zoe's shoulder as he makes a particularly difficult pass to Ric. He had not gone. None of the Brackners had, to Eliza's knowledge, and her mother had skipped it as well. Lynn was apparently 'dragged', but Eliza suspects she only wanted to blame her parents for making her go as an excuse for whatever guilt she felt. Dalma Stuart had gone as well, Zoe recalled, and she was the only one who Ingrid, her niece, had allowed to come too close.  
  
"I'm glad he wasn't alone, though." Eliza admitted, then exhales, "And it is sad what happened to him, I'm glad he could have died in a way that would redeem him, a little. Getting to die for me was certainly how he seemed to want to go."  
  
And so, as long as Sienna and Rory kept silent, Eliza would make sure that was how everyone believed he had.   
  
"Hmm," she nodded a little slower, eyeing Eliza briefly. Yes that certainly seemed to be the 'best way' for Sam to go. Ingrid seemed to be heartened by it, some, possibly. Personally, give Zoe a good dose of reality any day. Her son was a little monster. Eliza's eyes gave nothing back but cool consideration. There was nothing in her expression, in her posture, in her words to give the game away. At least Caelesti left me this skill, she thinks ruefully, before Zoe's words take her breath away again.   
  
"I remember seeing you and Sam together at a Christmas party when you were dating. I remember because," Zoe exhaled and then shook her head, "because I was transported to the past and couldn't help but see a different Roswell with a different blonde." Zoe facial expression read 'guilty as charged' as she pointed to herself with the hand still holding the glass of mimosa. She took a sip.  
  
Now Eliza arches an eyebrow at her in surprise, and doesn't bother restraining a shudder. There were only two Roswell boys and as far as she knew, Kevan had never been anything but the most uptight of posh and proper that propriety demanded. That only left the one. For an instant, Eliza swears he's standing across the lawn with those horn-rimmed glasses staring them down. The vein in his head throbbing, the twitch to his lip; two little tells that his humor was fake as he was, and she stiffens, taking her eyes away before he raised the whip. Her back twinges as her hair flips over her shoulder.  
  
When she looks back, it's just a statue of some Roman god in Lyndsea's garden staring back at her and Zoe's talking again. Eliza brings her gaze back to her, unsure and grateful.  
  
"And I saw it so clearly, I don't think very many people realized it. The way he had his arm around your waist and when it gripped it hurt. And maybe you wanted to grab one of the hors d'ouerves they were passing around and he would ask something like 'are you sure you want to eat that?', with a little laugh that was faker than my sister in law's tits. His hand squeezing way inappropriately but if you said anything he squeezed harder so you'd smile through it, and think it isn't that big a deal because hey, he can't help himself when it comes to you and that's a bit of an ego boost right? Except then his eyes would wander to your friend in the really short dress and all that fake confidence plummeted way down. And you didn't talk to your friends that night, hardly at all, because you had to get back to him, because he was always there, because he especially hated other men talking to you. And we always hear men can get a little possessive so it's okay, it's just boys being boys right?"  
  
With every word, Eliza feels herself swallowing fire, swallowing words of defense, all the things that she was thinking that Zoe would say two seconds later, like she really knew. Sam didn't mean to hurt me, she wants to say, Sam thought he was saving me, that's true, that's not a lie. Leave it alone, she might have added, leave it alone please, there's nothing there, it's done, he's buried, he's gone. But if Zoe was serious, if she'd dated Gustav, then she did know -- so she says nothing.   
  
Instead she just stares, blue eyes stretched wide, and feels herself nod in slow agreement, shameful and small, even as her lips pout in a thin line of hurt.   
  
Zoe swallowed before exhaling and then returned the subject back to herself lest Eliza feel attacked, or rather perhaps more attacked.  
  
"Do you know anything about how I came to be friends with the Brackner brothers?"  
  
"Just that you were young..." Eliza trails uncertainly.   
  
"Thirteen," Zoe nodded and scoffed, "so young. So, naturally, when an older, mature guy paid me attention I was mesmerized. Well, we were at this Ministry function, I can't even remember what it was for. So Roswell," it was ridiculous, Zoe thought, how hesitant she was still to say his name as it would bring him back to life, "Gustav, he took us to his father's office. We'd been 'dating' two or three months which is a nice way of saying we snogged and a lot of more unpleasant things I never tried to stop him from doing."  
  
How difficult it was not to gag.  
  
"But we were in public, I didn't want to and I tried to tell him so this time, for the first time, but he got angrier than before. Never fought back before. Slapped me down, ripped my dress, it was," she takes another breath when she remembers how fighting only turned him on further, "more brutal. But the boys, well they already hated Gustav and noticed him pulling me away from the party. So they came through the door and pulled him off me and proceeded to give him the beat down of his life." Well, his life until then. Max had mentioned the corpse had been...almost unrecognizable.   
  
Eliza was riveted, unable to speak or move. That explained the things Caelesti whispered, she thinks brutally to herself. Why it was Gustav seemed so singularly interested in 'working out' his anger on Harper, for one. Why brunettes had fiercely defended him and blondes turned away for another. Eliza had never been able to keep herself from noticing the fear in their eyes and contemplated dying her hair more than once.  
  
Her eyes flicker again but they hold Zoe's gaze steady as she says quietly, "You fought, though."  
  
"Took me some time but yeah," Zoe nodded agreeing a little.  
  
She hadn't, Eliza thinks, not sure how ashamed to be. When she had started fighting back, he wound up burned alive.  
  
"It took me a long time to be able to admit to Max, when we were better friends, that it wasn't the first time he had done that. It was only the first time he had been stopped. And when I saw you with Sam at some party I almost cried. When I next spoke to Al and I asked him about you much to his confusion, he had said you guys were over. And relief washed over me immediately, and I was so glad." Zoe chuckled now, wryly, as she remembered her own stupidity.  
  
"As if you not being together anymore would have stopped him. As if it had stopped Gustav."  
  
"It did for a while," Eliza insisted, her arms folding over a sudden chill. Of course she was cold, she thinks, it's December for bloody's sakes, only Brackners would want to be outside five days before Christmas to play a bloody football game. Biting down on her tongue, she shivers her sweater down closer. When she spoke again, it was calmer, almost numb.  
  
"He hit me twice." It's the first time she admitted it. "Once, open palm, just on the shoulder. I thought he was excited, so I didn't say anything, but it hurt. And once...he broke the skin of my cheek. I told Al I'd fallen down. He didn't mean to, he swore it, and he brought me flowers. Most of the time though it was little comments like you said. He bought me dresses, I thought it made sense he wanted me to wear them. Of course he'd be mad. And his friends were so flirtatious, said such lewd things, he got just as mad at them as he did at me. He...was nice to me though, he noticed me, he made me feel so special."  
  
Eliza scoffed, lifting a hand to brush her hair back and closing it down around her hip.   
  
Zoe nodded slowly. She remembered feeling like that as well. Most people didn't realize how easy it was to suffer the abuse. They thought if they ever found themselves in that situation, they could leave no problem. Some did, and Zoe was glad for them, but you didn't know until you experienced it. And there's always a reason, always an excuse, when a person you cared about was involved.  
  
"Hard to believe I still thought I had to rely on a man to make me feel that way. I am special," Eliza insists, "but only because I know I am."   
  
Then she bites down on her lip and turns back, mauve lipstick half rubbed off. "You are too. Gustav was a monster. And that I'm not conflicted on, not in the slightest. I'm glad he's fucking dead, and I only wish I'd gotten to help."  
  
The words were so hot, so angry, that Eliza's half sure she's still speaking to the Roman statue.  
  
"Sam was a little monster, Eliza," she almost repeated, "at least a monster in the making. And I'm not conflicted, I'm glad he's dead. If what Hols said was true, about what he did to Nadia and Victoria and to you, I don't have one single ounce of conflict. Because you will not grow into adulthood with that man, that shadow looking over you. Does that mean you don't have other shit to work through? Of course not. But it's one less, and he's gone, they're both gone and they can't hurt us anymore. And I'm not sorry that you won't have to worry about that monster tracing your footsteps and following you everywhere and you constantly feeling like you're watched." Zoe exhaled, took a quick swig of the mimosa to finish it and then exhaled.  
  
Ironic, that, Eliza thinks as she looks at the statue for the brief moment. Zoe was right, they were dead. They couldn't follow her. Why did it feel like they were? Her heart was going faster again, fast enough she was sure Alcott had just shot her a look that had nothing to do with his amazing goal save and everything to do with his ability to hear the beat.   
  
"So you'll forgive me if I don't believe for a second the story of how Sam died?"  
  
Eliza doesn't move. She takes another sip of the flute looking dead on at Zoe. She doesn't blink before she speaks, but she breathes in and out, letting the beat fall. When she opens her mouth, she speaks as honestly as she did to convince Devin's father as the Secretary, all the lawyers and cops who questioned her, and her father and mother, the latter of whom was as suspicious and disbelieving as Zoe is right now.  
  
"I forgive you," she said. "As long as you keep your suspicions to yourself. I don't need some cop poking around the corpse, exhuming his body, because I think from everything you just said you'll understand why I would have killed him. I think it falls under ever reasonable category of self-defense no matter how you construe it. And I think I'm well within my rights to make his mother feel better in whatever small way I can, when Ingrid never did anything to me but love her son. More fool her maybe, but that doesn't mean I have to make her suffer. Sam alone was responsible, Sam alone paid."  
  
"Ingrid is a strong woman Eliza. She's also a woman who lived under a false image of what her family really was and ignored it because she couldn't have anything less than her perfect family. It'll do more harm than good to feed her yet another lie to hide behind, especially if she learns it." Of that, Zoe didn't doubt anything. Like she said, give her a good dose of reality any day.   
  
Eliza didn't flinch. She thought she saw the truth of the words, but what harm could the corpse bring her? Sam could only be perfect in death, but at least let Ingrid have that. Ingrid tried to help, Eliza was sure of it. Ingrid had listened to her at the Gala, a lifetime ago. It wasn't her fault Sam was already too far gone...and she'd lost a boy she held in her arms once. Surely she suffered enough.  
  
"But," Zoe relented after a pause, "it is your decision and your knowledge to do with as you will. So long as you don't end up believing your own press, Eliza. Men like Sam, they hardly change and certainly not overnight. They're not about protecting what they love, they can't love, they're about destroying anything that threatens to take away what's theirs.  
  
Your decision, I do believe it's based more on protecting those you care about. Ingrid, yeah, and Sienna and Rory too I'm sure. And yourself, definitely protecting yourself. To that, honey, I only have to say brava. Bra-fucking-va." Zoe lifts the empty glass in Eliza's direction in a little toast.  
  
There was more to it than just protecting Sienna. How could she pretend this wasn't also simply her cold hard desire that everything finally be finished? When it was, of course it was?   
  
Eliza finishes her mimosa as well, smiling now as she looks at their empty glasses and tilts her head to ask, "Refill?"   
  
"Yes please! Jimmy's been giving me what he calls the Noel Special. More champagne than orange juice. I love day drinking, especially when I have work the next day."  
  
Eliza chuckles, and goes to get them both. When she's returned, her heart is calmer, her steps lighter and her sweater fixed. She understood now the weird sort of kinship she felt with the woman. And plus hey, Alcott had just made a goal.  
  
Zoe turned back to the whole family again. Harper was playing with Rosa and Alisa now while Lyndsi and Rosalia spoke. The football field, now devoid of the younger girls, was quickly turning into a full fledged game. Hols had managed to escape Elena and was now walking on the field after Al had scored a goal, declaring that she had just enough time to kick her boyfriend's ass before getting back to work.   
  
"Fifty quid on Hols!"  
  
"I'll take that bet!" Bianca called from centerfield, well if you could call the green and dry patch of ground that was separate from the rest if the white snowy ground a field.   
  
Zoe chuckled, smiling again but it didn't fully reach her eyes. After all, there was one Brackner missing. Looking back at Eliza as she came back with more drinks, Zoe took it gladly.   
  
"To fighting back, then, and moving on with our lives?" Eliza suggests, tentative in her smile as she offers the toast.  
  
"I'll drink to that," Zoe clinked her glass against Eliza's and took a sip, winking at her. 


	19. Frodo.

Lynn was having round four hundred and sixty-three (give or take) with their mother on when she was going to be allowed out alone again. Cheerily waving to an equally staying out of it Dad, Devin nodded once before going out on to their patio and closing the door. The abrupt quiet was lovely, and lasted all of three seconds as he held his phone to his ear and listened to that strange voicemail again.  
  
The long-winded ramble was from one of the D'Grey brothers, that he could tell, but he couldn't make heads nor tail of the rest. Well, except that Mr. Simmons had asked him to step in.  
  
He just hadn't exactly expected 'hunter lessons' from someone who...well. Had the bloody vampire abilities himself. Mr. Simmons might trust him, Dev thinks as he dials back, rubbing at the mark on his hand, but then again I'm not even sure I trust him.  
  
Trouble was after that bombshell Lynn lobbed visa vie freak-out with him and Nadia, Devin did understand needing to know more about this mark.  
  
A cheery voice answers him, and Dev just pretends he doesn't hear the disgruntled Stefanie behind him.  
  
"Afternoon." Devin says back, polite and cheery himself. "It's Devin Stuart. And before we go any farther, can I just get clarification that flattered as I am, I'm not interested in your hitting on me?"  
  
"Italian love affair speaking." Truthfully, Tony had almost forgotten about that phone call he had made to one Devin Stuart. Needless to say, there were a few things that had distracted him between the time he placed the call and now.  
  
Hearing Devin's clarification that he wasn't interested, Tony smirked before nodding to himself, "Ten-four on that, handsome. Rejection stings but I'll get over it." Does that mean he would stop? Nope, not now that he knew the guy was bothered/annoyed by it enough to point it out.  
  
Sitting up against the bed frame, he rubbed his neck as he said, "Take it you got my message then. So is this an RSVP or a decline?"  
  
Ten-four on that he said, but the simple way he answered the phone let Devin know he wasn't going to stop. Even if that name probably had more to do with why he could hear a 'huff!' in the background, the unmistakable sound of a (brat) girl walking off. Was it terrible he thought he knew that because of Lynn?  
  
"Glad to hear you'll recover. Take it easy at first, I've heard it's difficult to get over me." Oh, he was so screwed. With an exhale, Dev chuckles once at his own last remark.  
  
"Neither yet, I'd prefer to talk about it in person. Any chance you could come by? I'd have come over only..." Only he was basically on house arrest for the foreseeable future.  
  
He watched Stefanie leave with a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head realizing yeah, he was going to pay for that. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day when he least expected it and would most he hurt by it, she would walk off and leave him stranded to answer a very important call. Women.  
  
He literally had to bite his tongue to keep a comment back on that. Hold it back, hold it back- couldn't. "More or less difficult than getting under you?" It was just too easy! He had to stop though, technically the guy was underage and he could be charged and this was a family of....the law, plainly.  
  
"I'd be happy to," Tony obliged, now standing from the bed to put on a shirt and trousers and well everything except underpants actually. He put the phone on top of his chest and put it on speaker as he dressed.  
  
"Sure I'm not going to be shot on sight, or is that a risk I'm going to have to take?"  
  
"Oh, more." Devin shot back before he'd even thought about it, even as he rolled his eyes up to look at the setting sun. His lips twitch as he adds, "What can I say? I'm an easy guy."  
  
Devin was sure he'd uttered less-true things in his life but that was...up there. An easy guy now, he should say, and especially when this mark apparently restricted him from exercising his...well, their, his and Nadia's recent favorite activity.  
  
If Tony was going to be this much a pain in the ass though, Devin was going to return the favor.  
  
"Nah mate, it sounds like I just got you in enough trouble already." Well it did. He wonders briefly, was that overhearing part of this mark enhancing his senses too?  
  
"I'll let my Dad know you're coming over. Shouldn't be too difficult. Any aversion to being strip searched?"  
  
"Great answer," he commented with a smug grin, approving. In his humble opinion, all men should be easy. And why wouldn't they be? Devin knew the lay of the land, though if he were to haphazard a guess, it was more talk than anything else. A statement of what he knew -should- be said. Either way, it was entertaining. Perfect.  
  
"Yeah," he sighed, his brows furrowing as he buttoned up his shirt. Did sound travel that easily or was Devin's hearing already developing further? Geesh. "Nothing new, though." Compared to the rest? Yeah, this was a mild offense towards Stef.  
  
"Absolutely none," he zipped up his jeans and summoned his shoes to him, catching one as it zoomed towards his face, "Add in an extra cavity search, just to prove my willingness for cooperation."  
  
"Just tell her your helping a bloke out." Devin suggested unable to not offer his patented Stuart Advice when he hears the exasperated sigh in his ear. "Unless, you know, you wanted her to think I was a girl you were talking to." Because not once in their conversation had he heard Tony say anything that didn't indicate he'd left some girl in the middle to answer their other Love Affair's call. Setting her straight was the least he could do, really.  
  
But hey if Tony was playing it that way, Dev didn't judge. (Except when it came to Nick. Just because he likes the guy doesn't mean he'd stopped watching out for his sister if need be.)  
  
Or maybe Devin just felt a tad bit guilty. Just because this mark apparently carried a vow of apparent celibacy didn't mean he thought everyone should suffer the same.  
  
After a quick snort, Devin nods to thin air.  
  
"Yeah, all right, I'll be sure to tell my father that." He shakes his head, then gives the address to his house. "Oh. And if it's Maggie who checks you, she's lost weight, a'right?"  
  
  
A quick observation, one that would be entirely accurate had Stefanie not acquired super sonic hearing recently. Oh dear, there went that bitterness again. Private conversations were over forever! Oh, the humanity! Thankfully, living in this house and then sharing a dorm in college for two years, you learn to give up the concept of privacy. So it really wasn't that Tony was a exhibitionist, he was just conditioned to ignore audiences otherwise he'd lead a very unsatisfactory life.  
  
"Thanks for the advice, Dr. Phil," he grabbed the phone again and moved it over to his nightstand, sitting on the edge of the bed again as he put on his socks and got into his shoes. Memorizing the address, he paused momentarily at the detail of one of his security personnel and then shrugged.  
  
"Devin, rule a thumb? Unless they're anorexic thin, a woman has always lost weight." Or they've gotten their hair done, or they bought a new outfit, or they got their nails done. After all, who liked hearing after some time apart 'hey you look exactly the same!'? No one. It's always 'wow , you're looking good! Did you lose some weight?' Yes. That's girl code. He wasn't entirely fluent but he knew his way around the block.  
  
"See you in a few," Tony spoke before ending the phone call and finishing tying his sneakers. Bouncing back on his toes after he was done, he walked out of his room and skipped down the steps, yelling out to all the inhabitants of the house, "Going out to molest underage children, don't wait up!" He grabbed his coat and a scarf (took a couple of minutes styling himself to give Devin adequate time to tell his father the son of satan was paying a visit) and then exited the front door and turned on the spot.  
  
The wards on the Stuart family home prevented direct apparation from him, instead he landed on what seemed to be some sort of halfway room. It was nice! Classy, off-white, and with security personnel, one in each corner of the room, and another behind a raised desk he had apparated in front of. Minister Shane Stuart must spare no expenses.  
  
"Name?" The woman who must have been Maggie spoke out, opening a black book.  
  
"Antonio D'Grey..." he was confused, did the Minister really need this much security? Then again judging by the last several weeks alone, he could see the need for increased security and a specialized room for anyone wishing to visit. But the fact that he got past the ward was a good sign right?  
  
"You're not on the list, D'Grey," Maggie spoke, and if she recognized his name she didn't show it, not even a tiny blip in her heart. Then Maggie raised her hand to her ear, was silent for a few minutes and then spoke again.  
  
"Identification and wand."  
  
Tony provided them, a bit curious now to see how this process worked. The list? Meaning the clearance list or the appointment list? What did one have to do to get on this list? He wanted to know.  
  
Maggie verified his ID, made a copy of it for the records (he assumed), inspected his wand and catelogued it, before handing them back to him and then indicated he should move to the only door in the room and stand three feet away with his hands on the back of his head.  
  
As it turned out, Maggie had firm hands and an unforgiving grip. However, he managed to get pass the security with what he hoped were top marks! Maybe next time they'd be a little more lenient.  
  
The door of the security room opened up to the front door of the Stuart home, but when it closed behind him, Tony could just see the front yard through the windows. Now, that was pretty cool. He was in the entrance hall, there were two security personnel stationed there too, stoic and seemingly unmoving like the ones in the white room.  
  
But Devin was waiting for him, otherwise he got the feeling Tony would have been personally escorted. Swanky.  
  
"I'm either impressed or frightened, I'll get back to you on that."  
  
Dad had not been amused. Oh, he had been grateful for the heads up (after the fact, as had been stressed repeatedly). See, it had turned out the few weeks back that D'Grey was actually far more than a recognized name. It was generally accepted by half of the Ministry at least that he was actually--or had been, until recently, in the position of authority of France. It unsettled Devin's stomach to think on that. This was the younger son, he swore to his father, and then helpfully Eliza's father (who was still in their kitchen) had interjected. Devin had thought that would help.  
  
Sitting in their entrance room on one of those plush antique chairs Grandmother always complained should have been left in Stuart manor, Devin had resumed reading the family journal. Foot jostling, hand scratching at the back of his neck, two hundred pages in and still no mention of the vow of celibacy needed. Irritating. That should be on page one, he thinks, in neon writing and glow in the dark ink. And a sound system with bright lights that flash on the page Warning. (But maybe he was being a teenage boy who just was informed he couldn't have sex, yeah, okay sue him for his irritation.)  
  
He looks up, then chuckles immediately; the man looked ten years younger for some reason, peering outside as if trying to decode their security first.  
  
"Definitely scared. That's what I assume they're going for anyway." He stood up, a bit wary, book crushing his fingertip to hold his position. "Glad you made it through, though...you know, don't think that settles the question of trust here."  
  
Frightening and intimidation, now that was something new and completely unknown to him. He held back a chortle and then took a few steps forward, smirking at yet another clarification and then shrugs.  
  
"So much for you being easy, huh?" His smirk turns into an easier grin as he takes another step and holds out his hand to shake. Well technically this was them meeting for the first time, apart from the charity gala where things were just...problematic.  
  
"Antonio D'Grey, call me Tony, or loverboy, your pick."  
  
Deciding he appreciated the fact that Tony was reaching for his hand, Devin ignored the lingering feeling this was the sort of man to have a shock buzzer stuck to his palm and took it, grateful. The strength in the handshake didn't surprise him. Mr. Simmons had been filling him in on what he called the 'bare minimum of the Italian layer cake.' He got the feeling that was some kind of inside joke between them and decided not to pry.  
  
(He had enough moral headaches in his life right now.)  
  
"Devin Stuart, Tony." He said, shaking back as firmly as he was given, eyes open and searching Tony's as he did so. The formality calmed him. "Most call me Dev."  
Then he smiled, leaning back and folding his hands on his chest. "And yeah, well I already said I wasn't interested, so."  
  
See? He wasn't easy in anything; Nadia was a -- wait, he got the feeling he was supposed to stop calling her a saint. And definitely had to stop picturing her as a Hot Mother Theresa. Mhm.  
  
  
"Look mate, I'm still...incredibly grateful you're here. It's just...this mark was just supposed to even the playing field, strength wise, and now Liza's Dad is telling us it means I can't have sex and, oh yeah, I might try and kill you but hey, I promise I won't mean it?"  
  
Dev, aww that was cute. He spared the guy his slightly condescending thought and then nodded, deciding Dev was getting a nickname and wasn't getting a warning.  
  
"Nice to meet you, officially." Tony meant it. He couldn't deny there was some latent curiosity here over the guy his brother had chosen to 'save'. If you asked him though, apart from all the capo D'Grey reasons, Tony was certain that Oli shipped Nadia and Devin. Hardcore, almost as much as he shipped Harper and Lyndsea. Oli didn't let his favorite ships sink over little things like comas, memory loss, and 'death'.  
  
Even the playing field is what Devin explained it as, and Tony momentarily felt bad for the kid for having to resort to something so life-altering, not to mention dangerous. Welcome to the rest of your life, Dev.  
  
"I won't take it personally," he promised, knowing that much from Claude's explanation but the celibacy thing, that was new. Hunters couldn't have sex? Noooo...really? He had a tough time picturing Claude celibate but then again, now knowing he had been harboring a secret torch the size of the Gondor Beacon for his one and only beloved this entire time, maybe it was true.  
  
"Sounds like you need a drink," he nodded and then realizing they were still in earshot of the magical secret service added louder, "but you're underage so of course you can't have a drink." Ahem. Okay, never had he felt more watched in his life. How did these kids even breathe in this house?  
  
"What's this about no sex?" Depriving a teenage boy with a hot girlfriend of the one thing on his mind was just low.  
  
He wouldn't mean it much, he should have said, because Nadia and Eliza might have set him straight on which of their adversaries in France actually had been guilty -- but so had Dad. Still, he nods in appreciation of the promise and then chuckles out, "Yeah, you too." He meant that. Meeting people he'd first met at the ball--a certain Casanova leaped to mind-well, he was keen to put those things behind him.  
  
Oh, yes he wanted a drink.  
  
Nodding with his head behind him, Devin adds, "We can talk outside?" The patio also happened to harbour the stashed bottle Rene had so graciously provided him with. (There was another of his friends who had vouched for Tony. Irene was usually a good judge too. She'd been right about Al, Sie, himself, even (sort of, but this might be his guilt talking) Rachelle. Of course Ansel crossed Devin's mind as a kind of faceless dick, but he knew Rene was just more determined never to be wrong again. So all in all, Tony was likely a decent guy.  
  
At least, there was nothing that said he absolutely had to come help this kid playing with hunter magic out. Still, as he slid the enclosed patio door open, his face shifted in surprise. Mr. Simmons hadn't told Tony?  
  
(Then again, he supposed it was kind of an embarrassing way to put it. And obviously, there was the simple fact Eliza was born counter-acting his words.)  
  
"No," he's quick to correct, "no no, sorry not 'can't', just...won't. Shouldn't. With my girlfriend. Because I guess, she drew the mark, evidently rendering all birth control save the permanent options, useless."  
Devin slumped into the couch again, tossing his journal onto the table.  
   
"The walking, talking definition of It Only Takes Once." Devin gestured to himself with a bitter smirk.  
  
He followed Devin out to the patio. It was a nice house, very homey and not as pretentious a house as you would imagine a pureblood Minister of Magic would live in. Tony decided he'd like to meet Shane Stuart and Jana Rivers whenever he could. Tony liked to meet people, he was a natural extrovert and people person.  
  
Sitting down at one of the patio chairs, he listened to Devin's dilemma. Yikes, glad it wasn't him. Tony could actually be sterile like the liger or a mule. Hashtag: hybridproblems.  
  
"You know a woman is only fertile 7 days or so out of their cycle, I'd invest in an ovulation tracker...schedule...pee stick." Tony D'Grey, love guru. "Or if you don't want to risk it, get creative! Anal!  
It gets an undeserved bad rap.  
  
But," he shrugs, smirking a little, "you didn't ask me here for my sex advice."  
  
The word 'ovulation tracker' had been bad enough in Devin's mind, but by the time 'anal' came around his palm had met his cheek and forehead. It gave him an excuse if he started blushing at the words.  
"Yeaaah, okay Chopra. I'll just keep that in mind." Considering they had gotten lucky once here, (he prays, and Devin doesn't believe in a God), it seemed a push to risk it.    
  
Especially as Mr. Simmons had seemed to intimate it shouldn't have been possible for Eliza. This mark gave him super sperm. Great to know! Just not something he was going to tell the guy.  "How about I make this deal: if I need someone to draw a chart explaining how sex works with my swimmers having superman capes, you're my first call."  
  
Devin's smirk flicks up, feeling slightly better to respond in kind.  
  
"Otherwise, she and I are solo privy to all other related  discussions. Unless you're about to give me...more stellar news about what this," and he points to his mark, rolling his sleeve up, "is. It grew. She drew it on my shoulder," he indicates, "and yet the last few days..."  
   
He pauses, blinking.  
   
"I think it's darker just since I called you, actually." Maybe it grew in the presence of supernaturals?  
  
He wasn't about to say that he didn't know who Chopra was...but he would take it as a compliment by default. Grinning brightly, he nodded his head at Devin's obviously sarcastic remark and agreed, "Perfect! Call me, beep me...if you want to reach me." He realized a bit too late it was a reference that Devin was both too young and too old-fashioned to get.  
  
He moved to the edge of the seat, his eyes narrowing into focus as he saw the mark. Tony assumed it would have traveled all the way up his arm. He nodded his head, unsurprised to hear that it grew and got darker. Yeah, Claude had explained the ingrained...warning.  
  
"It's like Elven-made swords, it glows in the presence of orcs and goblins. In this case it gets darker around any supernatural threat. I'm only half monster though, which is why your instinct to kill isn't kicking in that quickly, I imagine. Now as I understand it you have a couple of supes for friends, Harper's son right? Any instinct to kill him?"  
  
Beep him? About to point out he'd already asked Tony to take it seriously enough not to keep hitting on him, Devin was stalled by a strange recognition. ..Ah. It sounded like a reference, like when Lynn would quote Mickey Mouse at him. Never mind then.  
   
(Besides, Tony clearly held to the tradition that saying 'please stop' meant 'try harder.' Control issues, wonderful.)  
That reference though, he was happy to say he got. Smirking immediately, he looked at the tat, placed a hand over it and said simply, "I dub you Orcist." Then looked at Tony, shrugging, "I know it should be 'Sting' but I always liked Orcist's name better."  
   
And it was a test of a true Lord of the Rings fan to be able to name all three of the blades anyway.  
   
He nods at first, realizing it likely grew darker when they'd shook hands then, and was distracted by the mention of Alcott. Harper's son, oh, his friend would like being referred to that way.  
   
"Er. Well, yeah but I'd assumed that was just from knowing the guy." Devin joked, half-joked, not actually aware if he had or not. There had been so many other supernatural threats, he hadn't even considered the fact Alcott was one until right now.  
  
Aha! A reference Devin did know! Great, fantastic. Until further notice, all of his jokes would stem from The Lord of the Rings, and apparently The Hobbit. Possibly a book fan, because no one who casually watched The Hobbit movie could have picked up on the name of Thorin's sword unless your name was Tony D'Grey and 'casually' meant obsessively. He did eventually read the books too, though it had taken him years.  
  
Tony chuckled as Devin answered the question in a way that amounted to 'no more so than usual'. They must have been complete bffs then, matching friendship bracelets and all. Smirking briefly, Tony continued.  
  
"Well, try not to kill him, as he'd likely kill you first. Your skills need to be honed and you can work on suppressing that instinct though I'm not exactly known for my self-restraint so I'd ask Claude about that...actually, how much has he told you?"  
  
"He likes to think the same." Devin said with a light scoff. Of course he felt that way though, and it wasn't until he spent a minute in angry disbelief that he recognized it was probably stemming from the mark more than actually remembering he broke Alcott's wrist.  
  
"Basically nothing." Devin chuckled, hands clapping together after he rolled his sleeve down. "I got the 'half monster' reference just because Eliza said the D'Grey I knew of was your father. Then she seemed to realize I didn't have a clue what she was talking about, so she squeaked, turned pink, clapped a hand to her mouth and wouldn't say anymore. I also wasn't supposed to say that came from her, but." He shrugs, "I thought it was adorable."  
  
Actually, it was more true that he didn't know how to feel with Eliza right now. He was overjoyed that his friend was okay (well, alive), but she'd spent this entire week dodging his calls after one evening at the Brackners and frankly, it was all right with him. He understood why she hadn't wanted to watch Hans get shot--  
\--except no, no he really didn't, not at all. The bastard had left claw marks on his chest that were never going to disappear.  
"I can think of one wolf whose heart I wouldn't mind ripping out, though." Devin commented, half thoughtlessly. Then he coughed, "Anyway. Mr. Simmons didn't tell me anything about you except that he trained you, and that sparring with you would help as you say 'hone' even as you do the same, considering the instincts. Better to train against the pros than the amateur. My question, is why he trained you...and what exactly 'training' entails. What being a hunter, entails."  
  
Tony shrugged. He didn't mind, most of the Scooby Doo gang must have known already known and well, honesty was important here for this trainer/trainee relationship they were going to form.  
  
"Secret's safe with me," he promised with enough amusement, nodding his head and then smirking as Devin commented on tearing out Hans' heart. Because surely, it must have been Hans. Yes, he and Devin would get along just fine.  
  
"He trained me because I had an...eye-opening, life-or-death experience when I was 14. I decided I needed to learn how to defend myself. I didn't want to go to my sadistic father for help so for the better part of a year I tried to train myself." He snorted, and then inclined his head, eyebrows rising, "Didn't work out very well.  
  
And then I happened across Claude while he was hunting. Saw him kill a vampire by himself, someone that looked just so amazingly ordinary, so I tracked him down, pleaded my case, and he agreed. I'm a good begger, I ain't too proud." Or at least, he didn't used to be. There were a lot of things about him that had changed.  
  
 "Training will obviously include the basic: sparring with a concentration on defensive maneuvers because let's face it, most vamps go on the offense. But there's also a few weapons training. Claude tells me you're handy enough with a crossbow. Silent, efficient, but slow. Guns are better, and you'll need to learn how to decapitate with a single swing, it's harder than it looks.  
  
And all of this because your family were hunters, otherwise that mark wouldn't have worked," he gestured to it and then rested his arms on his knees.  
  
"Hunters died out as a concept because werewolves and vampires began assimilating into wizarding society, granted rights and status and hunting them became outlawed because as long as they behaved by the rules of society, they had every right to live. But hunters date back centuries, millennia if you want to believe the stories and you might have some first hand account," he gestured to the journal he had been holding, "that proves it." A fifteen year old Tony didn't like research but he devoured books left and right once he started training with Claude.  
  
"As I understand it, Europe was fraught with monsters a long time ago. Villages lived in fear, the whole shebang. Wizards, and there was no concept of pureblood by this point, but some wizards and witches did their best to protect muggles, so far as you would have one or two protecting each village, but that wasn't enough. Vampires and werewolves, among other creatures, still had an advantage. So one wizard sought the help of a dark witch, more powerful than anyone on Earth, and with dark magic created the rune that would allow this wizard to...what did you say before, even the playing field? Well, just that and there you go. I don't know if it all stemmed from that one wizard, or if there were several other similar cases, either way." He clapped his hands together. "You've got powerful ancestry, kid."  
  
Ask and ye shall receive. That was on a page in this handwritten parchment journal of the occult somewhere, and it was apparently true. Considering Claude's refusal to explain and Eliza's apparent embarrassment, he had presumed that Tony would be against sharing as such. Then again? He hadn't extrapolated. Life-changing incident, saw Mr. Simmons achieve something of his dreams, plead his case, accepted and trained. So many words for only one new fact: that Tony thought his father was sadistic and refused to learn from him. Or okay, two new facts. Tony also was evidently the best bullshitter he'd seen at least since he was in the Ministry an hour and a half ago.  
"It sounds pretty hard, actually." Devin said, determined to be as straight with Tony as he could be. "So sign me up. But how would a gun work? I mean, I started training with a crossbow because--wood. Tiny wood stakes. Might not kill them, but sure as hell slows them down. A wood bullet though, wouldn't that explode from force of ejection from the barrel?"  
  
Then his finger came up, adding quickly, "Yeah I heard it, no dirty joke necessary."  
The history lesson sounded vague too, as much sense as it was making. Devin smirked, slight.  
   
"Son, you've got a family legacy!" He quoted in a deep voice, even if it wasn't actual a quote of anything. Breaking out into a chuckle of disbelief, he shook his head side to side and then leans forward, searching Tony's eyes. "Sorry, it just--sounded like you were just naming me the Chosen One. I'll be Ring-bearer if need be but, let's not pretend Bilbo didn't carry the Ring unaffected a lot longer than Frodo did."  
  
Okay, granted, same family line. So maybe not the point. He rubs his face, slightly concerned but undyingly curious. Weapons-training made practical sense, but the historical background was what would fuel his actual ability to fight anything.  
  
"Look." He said, slowly, cautious. "My father taught me  to know that circumventing the law is sometimes worse than outright breaking it. I still believe that. So it's hard to reconcile...this mark with an instinct to kill. I mean, Alcott is my friend. I know he isn't going to hurt anyone. I also know that...a lot of things never would have happened, especially to Nadia, if he hadn't been bitten because he never would have attacked Roswell. It's not Alcott's fault. But the supernatural element can't be ignored or the problem is just going to get worse."  
  
Devin paused, realizing very abruptly he seemed to have changed tact in the middle. But that was true in general. A year ago he never would have picked up a crossbow. Hell, he wouldn't have been able to fire it!  
  
So he asked, "Where did supernatural beings...I mean, come from? Dark magic? Other witches and wizards?"  
  
"They don't explode, and they're very real- pretty sure I read somewhere that the Germans used wooden bullets as practice ammunition. And ours get magically reinforced, so there's that. It's very difficult to get a wooden bullet right at the heart though, so the stake is still the best way. Silver bullets for werewolves. Once I came across a hunter that used a bullet with liquid silver inside, a la Underworld, so it got directly in the blood stream and keeps a wolf from healing." Tony D'Grey, vampire/werewolf hunter? That had never been a career choice, he had wanted to defend himself, not go killing demons of the night. But he had still learned quite a lot and bonus, he didn't hurt anybody while he did it. Just himself, and Claude occasionally (proudly).  
  
"Okay let's be clear, Bilbo carried the ring while Sauron was dormant and Frodo got stuck with it during hell and highwater and the closer he got to Mordor, and the more powerful Sauron became, the more powerful the Ring got. It's not the same thing to put lick a double AA battery and to lick a car battery. Don't mess with Frodo." He wagged his finger, nodding importantly and then continued on.  
  
Tony wondered if Devin noticed that he started and ended that statement on what seemed to be very opposing sentiments.  
  
"I know times have changed, and not every one of these vampires or werewolves wants to make you supper, but it's old magic, old magic that you have invoked! The Ring is no longer dormant, and you're gonna have to struggle with putting in an Old World spell with New World mentality, on top of everything else I mean." He nodded before wracking his brain for a suitable answer.  
  
"Honestly? I don't know. Some say it was just...magical evolution. Others say vampires and werewolves and monsters were the offspring of witches and wizards when they did the down and dirty with demons. I heard once a legend about the first werewolf, cursed by a Dark Witch- it's always a witch, these misogynistic legends, but either way...I don't know. My money's on black magic. Which is why only black magic could be used to successfully fight against them."  
  
To the first point, Devin nodded slowly, having to admit that while a gun seems depressingly modern muggle to use, if magic-reinforced the bullets (and their accuracy) it was much more effective than the alternative. Even if he was strong enough to jam a stake in someone's chest, even if he could move at the demons speed, it's not like they couldn't rip his head off before he even raised the stave.  
  
Oh, hold on, his LotR knowledge was in question here. He chuckles once, polite enough to let Tony finish (predictably with a witty comment), weighed the remark, and only then respond. It was only fair.  
  
"Ah, yes well while I do agree, that's just proving my point. The conditions of the time made Frodo's feat more incredible, he rose to their demands. He didn't have some...genetic guarantee."  
  
Devin paused, then allowed, "Okay, except for the fact that as a hobbit he was less susceptible...and frankly if this is an analogy, I would think magic-users were the *most* susceptible choice for Hunters to come from. So it's not a perfect analogy anyways." He sighs as he considers it but then has to acknowledge to himself: he wasn't actually against the idea that his bloodline was potent. Hadn't he been saying the same thing to Lynn for years? That 'Stuart' wasn't just some...demonic blessing as she considered it? It was what they made it? See, here was something he thought Tony had to agree on, considering his fight against his own family legacy.  
  
Hand slapping at his thigh casually as he leans forward, he adds, "I'm just...leary. I don't have any intention of going and hunting down all supernatural creatures. Every one of them have their own story that could make them morally justified; it's the world we live in. Though my money would be on darker magic too." Which was just a tool anyways.  
  
"But I can't ignore that they pose a threat to people who can't defend themselves competantly, I mean--what do you think?" His chin lifts, honestly curious. "Do you think there's an inherent evil in vamps and wolves?"  
  
Well if they were going to nitpick every little detail, they wouldn't get anywhere. Tony decided to graciously let it slide, especially as he was less knowledgeable on the works of Tolkien but if it was ASoIaF, oh no from that he wouldn't have backed down.  
  
"Well, it's not like they all hunt each and every one of them to extinction. Just the ones that are willful evil bastards killing innocents. And I also have to point out, most of them who activitate this rune know what they're getting into." Like Claude, who started on a revenge mission but there were some that were born in the life. Saving people, hunting things! Like Sam and Dean Winchester- yeah, he was done.  
  
The next question made him pause to consider, teeth gritting together momentarily. Welcome to Tony's number one existential crisis (because of course he had several).  
  
"I think...that accepting their own monstrosity is easier than holding on to their humanity so many just fall off the edge. Do I think evil is born? No, it's made. But the hard truth is most of them hide behind the 'fact' that they can't change who they are, and that morality is fluid, and that they don't have to live by the same rules humans do and that's there a 'natural order' to things but eventually what it all boils down to is them thinking one species is better than another and that's a filthy lie. And there's nothing I hate more than self-important pieces of shit who mistreat and abuse and use." He shrugged and then wondered whether of not that completely answered Devin's question.  
  
"And I don't care how victimized they are or feel, fact is, they have an advantage with their super strength and abilities, and that'll never be fair. They're right, the same rules don't apply to them, they have stricter rules and most don't keep them. Not to mention, vampires are the most pretentious, self-obsessed, narcissistic, uncaring, sadistic, terrorizing, arrogant assholes on the face of the planet." If Tony kept talking he was just gonna start going in circles here.  
  
"You don't have to go down this road, you know. You could look to see if you can...deactivate the rune. I imagine you don't want to be celibate until you want to be a father."  
  
Honestly, that did answer his real question from both before and now: Devin just wasn't sure how he felt about it. It might make it easier to train with a supernatural being himself who aligned (mostly) on Tony's beliefs, but he wasn't sure a man having a clear morality crisis was the best candidate for the job. One of these days they might actually try to kill each other.  
Though that was something Mr. Simmons had said. If Tony ever crossed that line, he'd want Devin or Mr. Simmons to kill him. Kill him before he hurt anymore* innocents. (Devin had paid close attention to the word anymore, before understanding that working undercover was not the same thing.) Still, he was wary.  
   
"Yeah, all right." After cracking a small smile, he adds, "I don't, that's true. But everything I've read so far doesn't include deactivation. Just controlling the urges over time. And more..."  
  
He just doesn't want to undo it, but isn't sure that's not part of the mark's doing. Tony was right, it did feel like something was stirring in his blood and bones, a calling of some ridiculous sort.  
   
"I want to." He says softly. "Fight, I mean. My family isn't safe, not even from it's own relatives. And something tells me Alcott isn't exactly going to stay out of this mess you have in France, nor will Hols or my sister, nor will Nadia, or Rene, or half of the people I know. More, there are too many people being hurt by supernatural creatures everyday and call it the mark, but I don't think the answer is create more supernatural creatures. I mean...that's insane. And -someone- has to bloody stand up for humanity itself, right?"  
  
Oh, Lynn would be proud. Clapping his hands together, he leans forward and adds, "I just needed to know if we were on the same page. Since I mean, all you just said...says the son of one who's, you know, dating another--" He says first, folding his finger tips together as he stays leaning forward. "--but I don't think anyone could be more truthful on the matter than that."  
  
Devin smirks, but adds seriously. "But I'm not here for a personal vengeance scheme of yours or Mr. Simmons. I mean, I don't need a psych minor to know you have pretty raging issues with your father, so I need to know if that's going to affect this."  
Just telling it like it was, Devin's smirk and hand raise say for him.  
  
Well if Devin ever learned how to control those, he'd have to give Tony a few pointers himself. Then Tony started to wonder if this reluctance to even try to find a way to make his abilities dormant again was due to the power of the rune tattoo. Interesting, if the survival instinct took over that well...this could lead to some potentially bad news for him.  
  
And finally speaking some sense! Can he have that again in instant replay? 'I don't think the answer is creating more supernatural creatures' thank you! Man, he needed that in a loop that he could play to -certain- people. Anyways, Devin had a point. If he was going to continue being involved because everyone one of his friends was, it was better to continue to be in the same league.  
  
"Wow you're an agent for humanity now? Okay, Frodo," he smirks, mostly teasing but he got as good as he gave. The next couple of statements were heavily accurate and actually, potentially painfully poignant. (Tony was sometimes known to indulge in alliteration.)  
  
"Don't worry Devin, I'll deal with my daddy issues the regular way: lots of alcohol, a pinch of sarcasm, and my winning smile." He smiled.  
  
"Fair warning though, if you go through with it, this training? For the next several months, there's no one you will hate more than me. The first two weeks, you're not even going to be able to sit right, and that's not a sex joke though I can make it one." He refrained though and carried on. "It's a good thing you're celibate too because you're not even gonna have the energy to get out of bed in the morning. But you will anyways, and all I'm gonna do is keep adding more weight on your shoulders. You're gonna cry, you think you won't, ha! Big fat tears, and I'm gonna laugh at you, and give you more reasons to cry and hate me." He smiled again. "Capisce?"  
  
"Ah," he chuckled in delight, mostly teasing back, "I prefer Strider, actually." Let someone else do the...sneaking into Mordor, seriously, he was just not cut out for that. Hols was the one who wanted to live in the wild, she could do it.  
  
"...what was it I said?" Devin asks, seeing the utter glee in Tony's face.  
  
He was still chuckling when Tony started to discuss his father and as sarcastic as the statement were, his smile had faded to genuine by the end. He night never have had an evil sadistic bloodsucking leech for a Dad, but he got a little what it was to be identified by a part of your family you couldn't do anything about. Trouble being he doubted Tony would listen to him on the matter when they (and he) had blamed his mother unfairly; Tony and the world had damn good reasons for hating his Dad.  
  
"Well, good. Then that's all I need to know." All you need to tell me, Devin meant, grateful without any urge to press the guy. Blunt honesty didn't excuse complete disregard of manners. Whatever Lynn, Hols , and Alcott thought.  
He clears his throat to nod, then starts getting an honest smirk again, not discounting the fact that Tony would work him hard --just the idea he'd cry about it.  
  
"Yeah no offense mate, but if the cruciatus curse didn't make me cry," for very long the first time or the second time at all, though he had been sweltering surrounded by flames were the silent additions, "Nothing you do is going to."  
  
Devin shrugged, but leans forward again. "I need to know fact from fiction, though. Wolves I thought I understood, then Harper Brackner turns up alive with a potion to turn at will and just five doses of it permanent. Oh, and I hear he can make the sunlight thing not a problem for vamps either. I know vamps have reflections, aren't bothered by sanctified ground or garlic, but otherwise...?"  
  
Right because he possessed the abilities to make him the heir to the throne of Gondor and the leader of all Free Men? Then again he had said Strider, not Aragorn, the Ranger from the North. Ranger material? Yes, okay, he could buy that so far. He had to earn the Aragorn title though.  
  
"Sense, Dev. You spoke sense, and man it's so nice to hear," Tony needed more of that in his life, damn.  
   
"Big fat tears," he promised with a wink. The cruciatus curse, yes, it was a bitch. It was the most pain you were gonna feel at once. As someone who had been tortured, even if it was only for a few days, there wasn't a lash, knife, or sharp weapon that would hurt more than that curse. But he got hit with it...what? Max 30 seconds, because the tears started after that Tony didn't care if you were the toughest son of a bitch on earth. But hunter training? It was like willful torture every day. Did Devin think he would be running a couple of laps, do some push-ups, spar a bit? This was like training to be an Olympic athlete okay? It wasn't just training, it was a lifestyle and it was miserable. Oh, the good old days.  
  
He'd let Devin find out first hand.  
  
"Yeah well, most werewolves and vamps don't have the Harper Brackner special," and he should probably stop right now before the wrong people found out about this if he wanted any chance at a semi-normal life again. Werewolves and vampires had those weaknesses -for a reason-. It's unnatural for someone to be that powerful, and nature was a fickle but powerful bitch, she always righted everything in the end.  
  
"Normal wolves get as strong as they're ever going to get about a year after they're turned, give or take a few weeks, I should say 12 lunar cycles I guess. Their age has nothing to do with their strength, their strength comes from their pack and their place in the pack. And normal wolves are strongest on the week leading up to the full moon, and their weakest right after.  
  
Vampires get stronger each and every year. Impervious to silver, no matter what True Blood says, killed by a wooden stake through the heart and sunlight. Fire slows them down, because they still feel pain but it doesn't work exactly like sunlight does, mostly because they can put out the flames of regular fire, but if you have one pinned down and they burn to a crisp and turn to ash, then it works."  
  
Sense? What was--oh, about being human? Yeah, well, clearly Tony needed to spend more time around him, Nadia and Rory at the very least. He chuckles and says first, "You need new friends, mate."  
Though Devin could understand making the best of a bad situation (as in Alcott's case), he couldn't understand actively seeking out this hell. Anymore than he understands Eliza not running like hell away from it now that she was out...because she wasn't, she was still in her own flat in France.  
  
He ignores the promise of big fat tears except to say, "Well it's not like I think a wolf is going to come up to me and heel when I pet them like some big fluffy rabbit." Devin pauses, then is unable to help himself adding, "Well, Al might. If you get that soft spot right behind his ears."  
  
He ducks reflexively, expecting a punch to his shoulder as he rubs it in memory. Then he listens closely, committing these to memory. It startles him - or it would, were he outside of his body and looking down, which it kind of felt he was - how still he gets, how removed from anything but the listing of vulnerabilities and weapons to use. Eyes and jawline hard, his nod is curt in understanding, not noticing the hand grasping his shoulder bears white knuckles.  
  
"Right." Devin barely hears himself. "When do we start?"  
  
Then he hears his question, clears his throat and raises his chin.  
  
"And...about Nadia. She considers your brother her friend. I know you're not going against him, because I get that with troublemaking siblings, but..." He clenches down on his back teeth and then says simply, "I just want to know...if it's possible that were a potentially dangerous situation to arise in Paris, you'd let me know. Her too, obviously. If we're involved, and we are, then we're involved. I don't need trade secrets. Just a general, you know, heads up that vendor is about to rob a bank, steer clear of the area til at least seven tonight."  
  
Maybe, but who had the time for friends anymore? He was barely managing with the friends he did have. You would think he'd have time coming out of every orifice and money enough to do what he wanted but that wasn't true. Time enough to train Dev, sure, but Tony couldn't let him walk around with a nuclear reactor with no training.  
  
Storing that petting comment for possible future use, he'd make sure to credit Devin if he did, Tony chuckled and watched his reaction to every piece of information. He was processing it almost like a soldier would, Tony noted. With a look at the rune one more time, he met Devin's eyes and answered.  
  
"Immediately. As of now, you're on a diet. Protein, protein, carbs, protein, protein, water, protein, protein, whey, protein, protein, water, water, water. You're pretty fit already so 3000 calories a day, eat your body weight in grams for protein." Diet, blegh...Tony should really think about getting on one again too, he was starting to get a little saggy. (Okay no but that had little to do with exercise and more to do with the recent addition of human blood into his diet.  
  
Eyebrows popping momentarily at the addition, Tony almost spoke out that Olivier didn't have 'friends' but that would have been too mean. Maybe a few weeks ask ago, Tony would have said Olivier didn't have any friends, just people he didn't have to threaten to help him but a few weeks ago he would have done a lot of things differently. Now they had the entire Scooby Gang involved: a bunch of kids with no childhood anymore. What the hell was he doing?  
  
"I'll put up a bat signal over Paris, just for you," he teased with a smirk before chuckling and then nodding. "Fair enough. Heads up is the least I can do."  
  
It occurs belatedly to Devin that he had no idea if Tony had been entirely truthful about his friends, but it had been a personal comment he probably didn't have the right to make. But then again, didn't he? Considering the risk he was taking by pursuing this runic, and apparently family, legacy, Devin would like to think he had the right to ask anything. He was trusting Tony to keep his ass busy enough and exhausted enough, that he didn't murder Alcott. (Or get himself killed.) And if he was going to lose control, better with someone who could put him down.  
  
His strength might be related to the mark, but there were other abilities too. His breathing was already measured and steady as if he trained for a swim marathon across the Atlantic; his eyesight had improved, his hearing had never apparently suffered the effects of standing next to subwoofers all night. Oh, and he was seriously hungry.  
  
"Yeah, no problem. I ate through three boxes of cereal this morning before even noticing, and those Cheerios had fruit and whipped cream on it." Still, Devin likes that the changes would appear to have stuck to heightening and honing human instinct. Fur or fangs (or green skin) just wouldn't work for him.  
  
Chuckling out, he shakes his head as he adds, "You know what, you do that and I think you'll become Nadia's favorite person in the world." At least for that moment. "Batman fan -and- you're helping me out? Tell Lynn you love Mickey Mouse and you're in there too."  
  
Or maybe not; Lynn was just flatly done with all of this fighting and had applied to Stanford. Devin had popcorn ready for when Dad found -that- letter. Lips twitching up again, Devin added, "You have any questions you want to ask me? I mean--you are signing up to put your life in danger here..."  
  
"No whipped cream anymore," he advised after sharing a chuckle at his new found appetite. Then again, teenage boys were already hungry enough. "And no fruit either," he added thoughtfully before nodding, sure of the decision. But if Devin wanted to Google 'diet for muscle building', then he could be Tony's guest.  
  
"She's a Batman fan?" -And- she had called his brother hyena mouth, on top of biting someone's finger off and stabbing out an eye. Tony put his hand over his chest; woman after his heart and she didn't even know it. "Who doesn't love Mickey Mouse?" he asked after scoff. Come on, he wasn't an idiot.  
  
"No more dangerous than it already is," he shrugged, grinning lightly before he considered any questions he might have. Well, except the obvious one here. If he was going to be cavity searched every time, he would like to think that one day he wasn't about to be taken down by a couple of security personnel for knocking Devin's ass to the ground.  
  
"Do your parents know what you're getting into? I'd rather not be on the bad side of two of the most powerful people in this country. More so than I already am." Thank you, last name, you have done it again.  
  
"That's putting it mildly," Devin grins, knowing that 'fan' was short for fanatic anyways and at least should use the full range.  
  
He waves off the diet mention.Yeah, he wasn't stopping having fruit or whipped cream, but he would -lessen- the intake. A body builder diet or not, Devin was going to eat what he liked. Unsaturated fats, sure, he didn't need. But he couldn't see why he would be better off against vampires if he had a few grapes. Oh, hold on, if he had candy, would he taste better to them? Was that why? Huh.  
  
The irony was of course, that putting it mildly was also relevant to how much danger the guy was going to be in. It was sad to think Tony knew what he meant by their childhoods being so interrupted - but the fact he got it was a bonus check mark to Devin himself.  
   
The question makes him pause, slowly smirking.  
   
"Well. They know everything that happened er--now, yeah that security isn't so much to keep you out as it is to keep Lynn and I in." Thank you, Lynn's big mouth. "But they know you're here to help, and they know we're not kids anymore. As far as the rune goes...they're actually right now with Eliza's--"  
  
"Aha," Claude spoke to Tony, cutting Devin off from behind as he smirks and asks, "There you are--so you didn't insist on being probed by Maggie then?"  
  
Devin chuckles once, his hand up, "Hey, I wasn't going to pry."  
  
"Why not?" Claude asked as he came over, shutting the screen door shut and going to take Tony's hand, pulling him up - literally, which Claude considers a good thing in the how-much-blood-has-his-friend-consumed-in-24-hours-department. Then he pulls Tony into a quick 'bro hug', smile honest as he teases, "He loves sharing."  
  
"Ah." That was a little more understandable. Hence the level 7 security that it took to get in the house. Kids misbehaved and they got punished. Wow, it really worked like that didn't it? They were grounded! Tony almost laughed. He wondered briefly what being grounded felt like before deciding no it was okay, that was one part of a normal childhood he wasn't too sad to miss out on. Half of the reason his teenagers years were bearable was because he could leave the house whenever he pleased and no one gave a solid crap, well except for Olivier he supposed.  
  
Before he could ask about the exact details of his training, an unexpected arrival made Tony sit up straighter and grin as he saw Claude open the patio door to come join them. Huh, good sound wards. He hadn't heard the footsteps, hadn't heard anything until the door was open.  
  
"That I do!" Tony stretches out his hand and then laughs once as he's pulled to his feet, hugging Claude and slapping his back twice with a cheeky grin as he pulled back, "She's got meaty hands and an unrelenting grip. I've never been more manhandled in my life....not sure if I'm traumatized or if I liked it." He laughed again and then sat back down.  
  
"I didn't know you were here! You wait this long to come and greet me?"  
  
"Unfair if you ask me." Devin was quick to add, even as he shakes his head and pushes back on the porch to let Mr. Simmons by. "The thanks you get for helping to save the world, all right?" And under his breath he has to add (because he's spent far too much time with Rene and Al), "Not to mention doing the exact same thing they would have done."  
Oh the trials and travesties of turning out exactly like their parents.  
   
To which Mr. Simmons apparently just has to interject with, "You mean disregarding curfew to charge into a burning lamdmark under direct attack, breaking about fifty dozens of school rules and oh, I don't know, national laws?"  
  
"Like I said," Devin has reached behind the patio and pulled out a beer, flicking the tab open, "Exactly what they would have done."  
  
With a smarmy chuckle and eyebrow wiggle, Devin took a sip. Claude sighs, looking at Tony even in sheepish appreciation as he mutters in tease, "Kids today." His hand lifts to Tony, as if to say 'what are we going to do with them?' and Devin just ignores them both.  
  
Lynn would have added 'Mom wouldn't have gotten caught', but really, Devin thinks, Dad caught her. (Eventually.)  
   
"Seriously, man," Claude nods at Tony, "Manhandled doesn't cover it. I was thinking," his grin is cheeky, "We clearly got the wrong idea here; Maggie should train him."  
  
"Oi, oh, woah--" Devin starts, gesturing at the beer to ask Tony if he wants one even as he protests. Then, frank and political as only Devin could be, "I veto that. Much rather take my chances with the hybrid vamp over here."  
  
Claude snorts, taking a beer himself before he sits down, across from them both. Yet he speaks quickly, noticing the dark hue on Devin's rune.  
  
"Yeah mate, sorry, no one told me you got here and I'm pretty sure a field could grow before Ms. Rivers stops talking."  
  
"Truth." Devin added, smirking.  
  
"Ah but see, being a parent gives you formal rights to be a hypocrite. Given that I'm already a hypocrite, I would have made a great father!" Yeah, right. It was probably a good idea to keep these genes from spreading and to just let the D'Grey name die out and stop it from being synonymous with evil vampires.  
  
He exchanges a look with Claude, shaking his head and shrugging, an unspoken 'what can you do?' traveling the air. Man, he felt old and he couldn't be more than 10 years older than Devin. How could he be feeling old at 25? Normal twenty-five year olds were just starting their life! Quarter of a century here on earth! Pretty big accomplishment.  
  
"She would definitely whoop his ass into shape faster than I could! You want to talk about biggest threat right now? It's not the vamp hybrid or the two hunters having a beer," he smirked and then leaned forward to take the offered beer, uncapping it and then taking a sip.  
  
"Oh and no beer," he added to Devin as far as his diet went. He couldn't say no alcohol because he wasn't even -that- hypocritical, but, "too many empty calories." See? Wasn't he such a great, positive, influential role model? He might have laughed.  
  
"Duly noted!" He nods and takes another sip before gesturing to Devin with it, "I was just telling young Dev here how much he's going to hate me." He smirked, thoroughly amused by the fact.  
  
"Yeah, I can see that." Claude said. Tony, a father? "Though now I'm feeling like a Grandfather."  
  
"Yeah," Devin chuckles, "'Only the expensive good alcohol, kids!'"  
  
"And no supper until you quote Top Gun." Claude cut in, smirking. "Or answer a pop-quiz  on the great houses of Westeros."  
Merlin, did he hope he was saying that right. Devin only groans as he says, "Yeah, so, I'm screwed then."  
   
"No, though actually that would be my sister." Devin counters with ease, shaking his head before stealing another sip of the beer before Tony literally took it from him, or something. Luckily it was beer. If it was firewhiskey he was forbidding him, there would have been no ignoring that hunters murderous instinct.  
   
Claude only laughs, countering as well, "Or your mother."  
   
"Actually," Devin perks up as he toasts Tony with the now empty beer can, "I think that would be your disappointed girl." He knew better than to say 'girlfriend', anyways, even when he was teasing.  
Claude, despite having to swallow a chuckle says before Tony gets a chance too, "Yeah, let's not go there." He shot Tony a sympathetic look. Although he couldn't help but add, "Though we could take her. Really."  
  
Devin only balled up the can, crushing it against his knee with ease and then shooting it into a nearby rubbish bin. Stefanie was only newborn.  
   
"Oh yeah," Claude adds with a smirk. "Totally loathe. Loathe."  
  
"Well, he would know." Devin's cheek was seriously underated sometimes. It took Claude a moment to realize what he said.  
"Hang on...so you're saying you hated me?"  
  
"Alright, alright, settle down -children-," he shook his head after a roll of his eyes as they continued to tease him about the children he most likely wasn't going to have. And despite it, man, he couldn't stop himself from picturing it. Fuck them. He chuckled and then took a lengthier sip of his beer.  
  
Now, never meeting Lynn or Ms. Rivers, he couldn't testify to their threat level but he had heard some doozies. And hey, Lynn had held a gun to Wolfie and Wolfie 2.0, so she had his vote. But as far as Stefanie's prowess? Oh yeah, he had already been at the receiving end of that. He rubbed his throat absently and then snorted, shaking his head. Yeah, that small aluminum can made the perfect model for a human skull and how easily she could crush it now.  
  
"We could," Tony agreed and then pointed at Dev, "you couldn't. Not yet. It'd be a close one, I'll give you that much." He smirks, mostly teasing and then was paid back in due when he realized Devin's strategy.  
  
"No, no!" He shook his finger side to side, "nope. Never. I've always loved you." He let a beat pass, two, then another.  
  
"I mean you were kicking my ass and I couldn't even get you to break a sweat for two weeks! And I had to -listen- to you. I have a problem with authority. And soreness became a lifestyle. But I never hated you, we were always too close! Right buddy? Right my man?"  
  
Claude didn't miss the way Tony's hand went reflexively to his throat now at the mention of Stefanie, but he was rather mode interested at the simple fact that Devin seemed to have noticed too. He hadn't thought that was a sense granted by the rune they now shared so much as by the fact he was forever worried about the kid (that wasn't so much a kid anymore) in front of him. (Oh hell, he really was turning in to a Grandfather now.)  
And, well, truth was he hadn't wanted to discuss Stefanie for the simple fact that he'd never met her when she was alive spare one brief encounter at Notre Dame. Now she wasn't. Tony might be free to sleep with who he will, but...  
  
...fucking vampires, man. And what was more, he knew Tony (had?) felt the same.  
Even as his eyes darted to where Tony's hand was, he spoke back to Dev. "Or if we helped you could. See, more than generous."  
  
Devin rolled his eyes, but Claude went for a high five with Tonio anyways. At least until his buddy started pointing out that listening to him was a pain in the ass. Ha. Ha ha. Oh, irony, and karma seemed sweet. Devin was already getting himself another beer; see how well that whole 'listening' thing went.  
   
Laughing, Claude waves off "Yeah yeaaah, right mate. I think a problem with authority dramatically undersells it, actually. But you were just as much a pain, making yourself my -responsibility.-"  
  
"Oh, well see," Devin interjects, "No worries, I'm my own responsibility."  
  
"Yeah." Claude said, swallowing with a smirk as he looks at Tony. "Yeah, he said that too."  
  
Before he could high five Claude, he had to explain himself out of the hole Devin dug for him, or rather, the hole he had dug himself but Devin had pushed him into. That was thoroughly unfair.  
  
"Whoa whoa whoa-," he waved his hand and shook his head because, no, Claude's responsibility? Please. As if. He-  
  
Tony suddenly looked at Devin, saying basically what Tony had been thinking then and thinking now. Oh man, what was he getting himself into? He looked back to Claude with raised eyebrows and then laughed.  
  
"Yeah, Devin, sure," he leaned forward and took away the beer can in a quick motion, replacing it with his own flask and then repeated, "no beer."  
  
Highly amused, and not at all exasperated, by the fact that Tony had interjected (and been ignored) with precisely his own point, Claude looks at him sideways. The patio door pats against it's wood frame behind them, taken by the wind.    
  
Yeah right, Tonio. Good luck kid, Claude wants to say (with his eyebrows, but he never had Tonio's skill or dexterity) at that. Once you care, you're in for life.   Ha. The tables were turned perhaps and yet--Claude still figured he'd be called from jail one of these days. And he'd go. Tony got under his skin.  Devin was still laughing into his marked palm when he had his beer stolen.    
  
"...so just the expensive, good alcohol then." Devin said, limbs tensing on reflex as he saw the quick dart. The wicker chair beneath him sags, creaks with his tension, but he doesn't move. The flask was full in his hand, a whiff of fine bourbon unmistakable. How had Maggie missed that? Eyes flicking up to Tony, his words were sardonic, but spoken through a smirk wide.     
  
"Thanks then, Dad."  
  
Truthfully, Tony half expected a punch to his throat but it was either a mark to Devin's control or his hesitance to give in to instinct completely that he didn't. Either way, for today Tony was glad that he hadn't attacked him simply for taking his beer away. Tony finished the rest of his with two gulps and then started on the one he had nicked.  
  
"Low quality swill is only acceptable when you want to get shitfaced out of your mind, for everything else, there's Four Roses." Bourbon- one of the few things Americans got right.  
  
"Dad, blegh," he wrinkled his nose and then turned back to Claude, "Dad? Make him stop."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind." Devin promised, or rather, he promised to try to do just that. He wasn't actually even sure what 'Four Roses' was, but he was too busy being grateful that Tony hadn't made it like he was giving him roses to comment on it. Swirling the silver flask experimentally under his nose as he inhales, he notices the cross on the side and sighs, bemused. Italians, man.  
  
Halfway through a sip he finds himself stalled, choking as Tony appealed to Claude.  
   
"Oh, come on," Claude threw his hand up. "I am -way- too young to be a grandfather--"  
  
"Thank Merlin Eliza isn't marked then." Devin coughed into his hand, and Claude utterly ignores it. For the best. (Devin was rather grateful, actually.)  
  
Claude still smacked Tony's shoulder with the back of his hand (light) (for them) (and okay he may have been testing how strong Tony was still). With a grin sheepish, he shook his head and allows, "Yeah, alright, I can do the wise mentor thing though." Mostly, Claude preferred that to reminding Tony any further of Remington.  
   
"So, he's Gandalf." Devin interjects, eyebrows wiggling, then looks curiously at Tony. "And judging by this?" He raises the flask, then takes another swig, "You're Gimli?"  
  
"No you are juuuust old enough to be a grandfather actually," he smirked, and decided to stop that line of thinking because he could have kept going and maybe it wasn't a good idea to let Claude know that if something went wrong he was having a little half-wolf baby for a grandchild. Tony would just spare Claude that knowledge, as frankly, Tony wished he had been spared it as well. Maybe it was time to hang up the reigns as gossip Tony.  
  
"Well I'm not so sure about wise," Tony teased after Claude slapped his shoulder and shrugged. Claude wasn't exactly what you would call a good influence under normal circumstances but Tony's life had never been normal circumstances. And Claude was a good man, a little twisted, a little fucked up but if he had been too narrow it would have never worked. Still, as far as mentors went, Tony didn't do half bad.  
  
"Nope, I'm Faramir," he snorted briefly, poking fun at himself and his own problems before adding, "Do you know that if you type up in google 'Faramir's father' google corrects you with 'did you mean Boromir's father'?" Tony laughed, remembering when he first found that out.  
  
"Talk about cold." And accurate. "Nah, if I were to fellowship assign myself...I think I'd be Merry. I'd -want- to be Legolas, but I'm not Legolas. Just like I'm not Spike," he sighed, "or Damon, or Dean, or Han Solo...I've made my peace with it."  
  



	20. Going On

"You were turned by Chantel's sire?"  
  
"Evening, Olivier," Stefanie mutters, pillow in her lap. With a tiny smirk on her lips as she listens to his resolute heartbeat, she wonders idly who taught him to keep so calm. Definitely wasn't Tony's Claude, so, she wagers Daddy Dearest. Or maybe it was Chantel herself; appearantly they had quite the history.   
  
She licks her bottom lip. His approach had been long forewarned as she suspects he meant it to be, so she doesn't bother turning until he was leaning against the marble fireplace. Oh, ick, he was starting a fire wasn't he? Yes, she had the windows open. It was nice out! Okay, ignore the snow on the Persian rug. Humans, she thinks, amusing herself with the unfamiliar thought.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, did you want an introduction?" Olivier asks in a voice so sardonic it might be dripping. His elbow bites into the mantle place as he looks at her, smirking, "Twenty-four hours ago you appeared on my doorstep and just claimed a room--I thought skipping greetings was our thing."  
  
Stefanie's fingers dig into the pillow. Fickle, she thinks, the word was fickle. No need to tell him she agrees. She smirks back at him, saying lightly, "Yes, well I'm unpredictable."  
  
There was a peculiar twinge to Olivier's eyebrows and he turns, kneeling in front of the fireplace before he responds. It wrenches eye contact from her, which in all honesty, she knows was the point.   
  
"You certainly are that."   
  
Why was it even when Olivier D'Grey is in agreement with you he sounds like he's scolding you? Harumphing, Stefanie draws her legs into her chest. Was he about to tell her she had to listen to his rules if she wants to stay there? She's been waiting for that. Letting her crash when she claimed a room as a human was one thing, she supposed, but Olivier probably knew better than most what a vampire house guest was like. If she wasn't presently stuck reliving over and over again the moment the body went limp in her mouth, Stefanie would heed him off. Tell him she wasn't doing anything his way, she just needed access to the sunlight potion and blood bags he had, she wasn't going to kill him or any of his staff. It was a glorious speech in her mind.   
  
(The girl had tastes glorious too.)  
  
Instead she answers, ignoring how patient he'd been to wait her out, "Yes, Chantel's sire. You know, I'm not sure how comfortable I am knowing you were eavesdropping on us on the porch..."  
  
With a chuckle, Olivier shook his head. Snapping his fingers, flames leaped up and he stands prodding a log with a long metal tongue.   
  
"Trust me," he says like that was so easy to do, "I had headphones in the minute I saw him follow you out."   
  
"Ah."  
  
"Tony just told me." He was still speaking casually as he meets her gaze again. The peculiar fold in his eyebrows was back as he held her gaze. He looks...sad?   
  
(Tony didn't only tell him who turned her).  
  
Stefanie feels her face shift before she thinks, the teeth she grits scratching her tongue abruptly and winces with the slice. Olivier doesn't flinch, though she hears his heart perk up a bit. Hell, it still was loud. She'd been hoping feeding with Tony would have calmed that a little more, but no, her throat still feels plenty aflame before he lit the damn wood.   
  
"Marcus isn't known for tight leashes," Olivier says mildly, but his eyes have to be watering with an urge to blink right now seriously, "but I am a little surprised he'd just let you walk away the day he turned you."  
  
Stefanie's own brows furrow as she regards him. What was he trying to say? Did she really have to spell out that was the deal she'd made from the start?   
  
"Is it really that surprising a man would let me decide for myself where I want to stay?"  
  
Olivier snorts, sitting on a chair a decent pace from her as he offers, "Far as I'm aware I haven't kicked you out, so, no, not that surprising."   
  
Stefanie pauses. Okay, he has a point. Guilty as charged. She bites her thumb and smirks at him as she sucks the blood on her tongue back into her mouth, eyes bluer as she's appeased. It was a grin she thinks she used to give girls in school when boys they liked had asked her to dance.   
  
"He stayed when he turned my Dad." Olivier says quieter, and she suddenly gets it. Oh! He thought she was there to spy on him. Well, that wasn't a hundred percent incorrect, but she wasn't under orders. Amused, she gives a giggle before letting her thumb go and answering his unasked question.  
  
"I'm not here to infiltrate and destroy you, babe. Look at your own girlfriend for that," she (half-)teases. "I meant it when I said I just wanted help."  
  
Olivier still hasn't blinked, even as he laughs himself and waves it off.   
  
"I didn't think you were," he says honestly. Though she can hear how he breathes easier at the thought and finds it funny--did he mean to lie, or did he not know he'd been worried about that? Both, she thinks, quietly to herself. He was in power. Power's first goal must always be to remain in power, keep hegemony ticking and all that.   
  
"You want to stay here?" Olivier asks, and she thinks 'here it comes then, the list of rules'--but he startles her when he finishes the thought. "Even though you blame my brother for Marcel's death?"  
  
He thought she was there to punish Tony. Stefanie's eyes widened. Not...a hundred percent wrong either, she knows herself well enough to know that even if she has very little idea the kind of person she is anymore. Tongue swipes her bottom lip as she shuts her mouth again. The fire crackles behind Olivier. Slowly uncrossing her legs and leaning forward on the couch, the pillow rolls off her lap until it drops to the floor, forgotten about.   
  
"Why did you bring a stake to the Church?" She asks. There was no answer she could give his question that would make him feel better. It might be her own big brother that married him, but she knew her brother in law enough to know that too.  
  
"As a last resort, in case I needed to stop you."   
  
"From killing someone?"  
  
Olivier doesn't pause for breath-  
  
"From killing my brother."  
  
Stefanie shuts her eyes, then mouth, then nods. Of course. It brings tears behind her eyes, but she was starting to get used to that, the rapid emotions. Besides, these were tears of happiness (she thinks), wondering if Tony knew how loved he was.   
  
(Some part of him must; it was how he loves others himself.)  
  
"I'd have stopped you from killing anyone else too," Olivier continues, and that makes her eyes open, clearer and blue before he adds softer, "But I can't say I'd have killed you first before letting that happen truthfully, no."  
  
That was fair, Stefanie thinks, only now noticing how her nails were digging into her wrist. Nodding once to say she accepts it, she finally answers him too.  
  
"I don't blame him for Marcel, Oli. I just...don't know how to go past it any way but just by going on. You know, like Beckett."  
  
Olivier looks at her confused,and she chuckles, realizing he must be mentally searching ASOIAF characters. Ha!   
  
"The literary one, babe. Samuel. I can't go on, I must go on, I can't go on....I'll go on."  
  
They share a laugh, as he nods at her understanding. She's glad he got it. She's not sure she does.   
  
"I refilled the fridge," he offers, like he told her he bought milk, and she smiles at him like she probably hasn't since she stayed here when she was eleven, muttering back, "Thanks, D'Grey."  
  



	21. Amethyst

**Tony:** B-t-w, ordered the ring, it's coming any day now. You like amethysts?'

 **Daniella:** *beaming* Is it? Yes! How'd you know?  
  
 **Tony:** Your aura *he waves his hands in front of her* is quite purple. That's my thing now, I read auras. Nadia was teaching me while Devin ran laps.  
  
 **Daniella:** *Laughs, falling on to the arm of the chair,* That's pretty cool actually. I like it--means royalty, doesn't it? And it's,* catches his hand,* violet, dah-ling. *winks,* No but seriously, how do you read an aura?  
  
 **Tony:** Don't be so posh, Daniella, no one likes posh. *What a _weird_ word, he didn't think he'd ever say that again.* It's the color of royalty, yes, because back then only they could afford the dye. See, I know things. *nod nod* Okay, well first you have to tap in to your Inner Eye, and yes, I did make a dick hole joke *he shrugs* connect *he took his hand back to gesture all around* with the world, be one with the greater forces that exist around us, helping to shape us *lifts a finger* but not govern us, as we make our way through life. See, our lifespan is barely a flick in the history of the universe.  
  
We have to  _embrace_ *he threw his arms open before hugging them around his own shoulders* the overwhelming vastness, the history of every speck, the deafening sound...of silenceeeee. Be at peace *he closed his eyes* feel the energies.  
  
*he nodded before clapping his hands together, opening his eyes with a grin* And then you realize that a 15 year old girl has been dicking you over while you try to tap into the cosmic powers.

 **Daniella:** ...Tony, only you could look uncomfortable saying that word. *His face made a funny twitch like ... twerk, every time he said 'posh.' She disagrees anyways: Olivier was posh and proud. Aha! Posh and proud. There was a statement Tony would make a face at.  
  
Her eyes were going wider and wider as she wiggles eyebrows, and then tries to tug him to sit too. Failing that, she sits up, and starts mimicking his movements with a very-very-serious-oh-yes-so-serious-face, hugging and clutching her arms to herself.  
  
Then she bursts out laughing.* ...I owe Nadia a cupcake painted like batman for that. Oh that is priceless. *She claps her hands together.* Bet Dev paid her back well though, she probably was getting a little revenge for the laps you were making him run. *Her lips flick up,* Through by the way, meant to ask before, what sort of mark thinks it's a good idea to make teens NOT have sex, anyway?

 **Tony:** *He didn't like most British lingo. Just shag, and yes, wasn't that predictable at him?  
  
As Dani played along only to laugh at the end, he just rolled his eyes and then gestured at her with her hand as if to say 'yeah yeah, laugh it up'. He smirks.* Yeah, that was pretty much why. I think I said one celibacy joke too many.  
  
*He's ready to sit down now though, so he tugs her hand back and plops down on the armchair* A mark dating as far back to the 8th century! I've been researching with Claude. And anyways, it's not supposed to keep people from sex, it's supposed to ensure the bloodline continues. 15 year olds got married all the time back then.  
  
*He shrugs* They're the ones who keep each other from it, but I suppose a teenage pregnancy would put a damper on things. *he tilts his head* As if vaginal sex was the only way to get off, pft. Teenagers.

 **Daniella:** *She is promptly, nearly lifted off the chair as he tugs himself into it, so she leans all the way back instead and falls on to his lap. After blinking just once and smirking, she continues non-deterred.* Oh. That makes more sense. Hard to believe they ever needed to make teenagers more horny though.

8th century though!? *Dani puts both index fingers her mouth, whistles...and promptly turns it to a cat call whistle, then whacks him just to keep things even at his last remark.*

Yeah, and there's that. Don't think Dev would thank you for sex advice though. *She giggles, suddenly looking mischeivious and wicked.* And hey. I was certainly better than that even when *I* was a teenager...but to get those stories, fiance, babe, I expect some in return.  
  
 **Tony:** It was to make sure the baby went to term, by making the sperm super. I suppose, details are still a little fuzzy, I wish I could google 8th century blood magic rune spells or something. And I have tried.  
  
*Chuckles and the mutters 'oww' more out of habit than actual pain.* He should, I'm practically an expert.  
  
*He rolls his eyes* Yeah sure, but even still that doesn't count cause you're a freak and you were emancipated at fucking 13 so I'm not sure you were ever a teen. *Smirks as he considers this and nods* Alright, story for a story, sounds fun! Let's get drinks.  
  
 **Daniella:** Hey, I may be able to help there....another time. Let me ask my Uncle Brandin. And by that I mean challenge him to a debate so he actually tells me things. *And people thought manipulating Brandin was hard! Daniella giggles, licking her top lip and contemplating her hand as if wondering what an amethyst would look like there.*  
  
I was so a teen. *She says petulantly, purposefully, attempting to imitate the brat sixteen year old and failing that just flips her hair over her shoulder. Then she blinks. Yeah...Olivier was right.*  
  
Oh...I had like an entire bottle of wine earlier, I'm fineee. And you have such a comfortable laaap, I don't want to move. But! *Quickly, patting his shoulder to soothe where she hit.* I'll go first. And thennn you can give me dirt on Oli fiiirst. *Her eyebrow pops up.* Deal?

 **Tony:** It also helps to be blood-related to him, I'm sure. *he nods and then scoffs as she tries to sound like a typical the-world-hates-me-and-i-hate-it teenager, but she failed.* Nice try.  
  
*As she refused the drinks and didn't let him stand up, rude, he exhales up* Fine! Deal. The level of your story will determine which one I choose to divulge so choose carefully.  
  
 **Daniella:** Ohh pft, *she teases with a shamed blush on her cheeks at 'nice try',* you're still a teenager, so shh.  
  
*That stipulation she liked though, as did she the fact he didn't get up anyway for drinks. His brother was right; Tony did reach for the bottle a little too often. Hybrid super liver or not, she thought him learning control with alcohol could help with his bloodlust too. It was all the same behavior!  
  
She chuckles as he pouts, adjusts on his lap and hangs her head back over his shoulder.* Oh, hmm. All right. I was just going to...start with first time...considering it was with the Head Boy in the headmaster's private study. *She smirks.* And I still have the uniform. I was fifteen. He was eighteen. I was convincing him to help me sneak out this confidential report so Amalie could put it in the school paper -- and we got stuck under the desk when the secretary came in! And then so I was on top of him and even when she left I just...kissed him.  
  
*She tilts her head down and looks at him sideways.* I don't think I ever told Amalie we'd done it  _on_ the report...it was a photocopy we gave her though! So no harm!! *She pokes his arm.* Your tuuuurn.  
  
 **Tony:** Just because I'm getting older doesn't mean I have to grow up. *He grinned and then shrugged before settling in to listen to her story. First times end, clapping his hands together* Very nice. Under the desk instead of on top of it, I like your avoidance of cliche. *Smirks* Freeeaaak.  
  
Okay, dirt on Olivier's first? Well, to be honest, that was during our dark years, so I don't exactly know. And he always seemed to be getting some. *shrugs* Who cares, I want to talk about myyyy sexual escapes.  
  
 **Daniella:** I live to serve. *She pokes the side of his head, as if to point out she means she serves his head, puts the images in there,* and I abhor cliche.  
  
*Mostly. With an abrupt giggle as her hand comes back she answered the unasked question,* We might have wound up on the desk too. And yes. It was a plaid mini-skirt. *Dani admires his restraint at asking that. As her hand fals back on her knee to adjust the skirt she wears now she adds in surprise,* Your dark years?  
  
*That was mostly news to her. Did he mean when he was at college and they hadn't talked or...? After looking at him seriously for a moment she faked a gasp and adds,* Olivier wasn't a virgin when I slept with him!? That little liar! ..okay not that little,*she clears her throat,* but yes yes then, who was your first then? Unless you have a better story too? *She smirks.*  
 **Daniella:** *She chuckles at his little sigh,* Sorry cheri, I suppose that's just not French. I do know what you're talking about, *she raises her index finger,* had a swim costume like that, but that's it.  
  
*Her eyebrows now knit together, stilling as she hears 'discovers their bloodlust' and realizes she has no idea how that happened. It was connected to Tony leaving? That makes it seem like it drove him away.* I didn't realize that was an...event.  
  
*Had Olivier ever..no, but that was silly, Olivier wouldn't have just mentioned his past in ha, passing. He didn't tend to talk about it at all. If it wasn't for Tony (and, she begrudges, Hans), she likely wouldn't know how Remington died.  
  
...ahh, that made a little more sense too, why the bastard would have tried to turn Olivier and why Tony would have stopped him. If they'd been arguing about it...  
  
She clears her throat suddenly laughing. She'd been kidding, of course, but now she teases, "But he got so much better so quickly! I thought it must have been--!"  
  
Mmhing through 'total catastrophe', she suddenly stills and allows a slow crawling grin to inch across her face.* Oh, fabulous nameeee. *Incapable of not humming,* You don't have go wear that dress tonight...  
  
 **Tony:** *Yes, that's because they didn't talk about it because it was a dark time- pretty easy to understand. Seeing the look on Dani's face though, he exhaled and then poked her side* I'll tell you that horror story someday, I want to talk about happy-me now.  
  
Yes, ROOOOOOOOOOOO-xanne! *He smirks and nods * Coincidentally, she didn't know about the song. I guess The Police and Moulin Rouge weren't her style, but oh I taught her.  
  
*Grins* Roxanne, gorgeous, curves in all the right places, wavy tawny hair, legs that went on for-everrr and *he laughed at this* a computer software engineer. I met her in New Yo rk, I was a young, enthusiastic 18 year old and she was 29, almost 30.  
  
Let me tell you, I almost didn't go back to girls my age. The things that woman could do. *He hums.* It was my sexual awakening, sex changed forever. It was a wild and experimental three months, and the things she could do with her mouth? *he whistles, nodding*  
  
To this day, the best head I've ever gotten. See most women, they give head because they know we like it, even when you're sloppy, of course we like it, but -she- just loved it. She honestly loved sucking cock, she would wake me up like that.  
  
 **Daniella:** Your point is valid. *She teases back as she thinks the 'horror' story probably did require drinks for any sane human being. Smirk widening she adds,* Bring Madame Sir Cuddles that day-- it sounds like I'll want a teddy bear.  
  
I mean...early secondary school years are horrors for everyone but, you D'Grey brothers, *she elbows him light, a poke, grinning,* you do everything so much grander than everyone else.  
  
*Exhibit A, she realized, as he started talking. The smirk only widens with wickedness as she listens (and continues humming 'Roxanne' under her breath, because sue her).  
  
Breaking out with a squeak, then slamming her hand over her mouth as her eyes shine her amusement and appreciation anyway. When certain she won't break into embarrassing giggles, she lowers the hand.* Oh, and so she lives up to the name! *Dani whistles,* She sounds like someone I would loooove to have a drink with, Merlin. Now of course I'm rather curious what tips she'd have...  
  
*Daniella shrugs a shoulder.* I might be a freak, okay definitely am considering I love your brother drinking from my neck. *She says this nonchalant because she knows Tony needs to hear it that way, needs to hear it naturally spoken even as she acknowledged the freakish-aspect. These brothers, she wants to sigh. To them it was natural! The only reason Tony doesn't think of it that way was because his father was a psychotic bastard creep, and these brothers were the only ones who existed. They took society's construct of morality onto their shoulders, Tony more than Olivier, without acknowledging society had changed the moment they were born.  
  
But she grins now, without batting an eye.* That doesn't mean I'm unwilling to learn tips from practically-an-expert, *she prods Tony again,* who tutored in such a goddess's bed.  
  
 **Tony:** *He snorted, thinking 'ain't that the truth' to himself. It was plain obvious to say that they weren't most people, so obvious that even he wouldn't say if aloud. But Dani was right, she would need a teddy bear and he would need a drink or maybe two. Then again, that wasn't anything new.  
  
Later he really would have to ask Daniella how she managed to make so many different expressions with just one face, now he laughed as well.* Oh yeah.  What a woman.  
  
*He smirked only to snort as she acknowledged herself as a freak -- yes, Dani, of course you are completely freaky -- and then laughed again as she continued.* Goddess, that is exactly the right word. *He nodded.* I can give you a few tips, but, but I have to ask. Oldest man you've ever fucked?  
  
 **Daniella:** *In the meantime, she decided wholeheartedly, his lap wasn't the only comfortable part of him, and she swivels to snuggle up to him like he was a substitute teddy bear. Maybe she had more of that wine than she thought. Stef was right. Dani imagines his embrace was even warmer when your heart doesn't beat too, and you know, he was inside you.  
  
In multiple ways, she thinks eying the vein in her wrist and then tucking it back to the arm of the chair. The question makes her laugh again.* Er. I don't actually uh. Know how old he was. See there was a guy at a bar, *she grins sheepishly,* maybe...fifties? Girlfriends and I were daring each other to kiss strangers, don't ask, I don't remember why. Except Raph, Raphael that was his name, he had a heart attack when I kissed him, not kidding, *she holds a flat hand up, as her voice pitches,* so I rode with him to the hospital. Cause I felt guilty. *Her head tilts, hand flapping again and she adds brightly, * And was flattered, anyway! So then I stayed until he woke up, and we started talking and he remind ed me what I said before I kissed him, so of course I go and quote Doctor Who and when he said the right thing back I kissed him again, and then before I knew it...*She grins sheepishly, biting on her thumb.* I was drunk! And because as I said, life is short and you are hot. He was, too. Like Harrison Ford in Sabrina. And he knew to say 'because life is long and you are hot!' I couldn't resist that fantasy all right, and I was 19 so, sue me. But, ahem. *She clears her throat, grinning at him.* Besides the uh, obvious. Weirdest kink?  
  
 **Tony:** _Fifties_?! *He throws his head back and laughs, and then groans and sticks out his tongue. He shook his head before settling more comfortably into the chair now that Dani had seen fit to make him into her own personal teddy bear. He didn't mind, he loved cuddling.  
  
He was trying to keep an open mind but the guy literally had a _heart_ \- attack! He laughed again, putting his hand over his mouth to control himself and then cleared his throat, nodding at her to continue.*  
  
You had sex with a guy after you gave him a heart attack?! You're a fuh-reeeeek! You could have killed him! Didn't the monitors beep and the nurses rush in or something- *he laughed again, bringing a finger to wipe under his eye as he sighed*  
  
Oh man, that was a good. I haven't laughed that hard in ages. Geesh. *He chuckled again as he shook his head and then cleared his throat and thought about it.* Weirdest kink? *Aside from the obvious, ha.*  
  
Well I tried fire play once, with this girl in Uni who had made quite a name for herself with it. It was intense, but I probably wouldn't do it again. Oh, and there was this one chick that told me to make animal noises! Barnyard animal noises, the more realistic the better. I ran out of there faster than I could put my pants on, actually.  
  
You know what I've always wanted to try? Fondling while the woman sleeps, see how far I can get before she wakes up.  
  
 **Daniella:** *It was good -- actually, it even felt fantastic, as his chest rumbles and for a moment Dani had herself a vibrating chair -- to see Tony just break down and laugh. Laugh so hard he felt fit to bursting, wipes a tear that was only fifty percent imaginary away away with a blink and a smirk.  
  
She echoes it, repeating his 'yeah, yeah, laugh it up'  gesture before saying easily,* Hey babe, it was a muggle hospital, I could mask the heart monitors and soundproof the room wand less before I was fifteen. *Then she pauses, realizing what she said.* Okay, so that sounded wrong. I swear I only slept with a guy in the hospital the once.  
  
*She'd soundproofed rooms for Dylan's vanity, but that was much more recent.* And as you said you know-- man did he have experience. Raph played me like an upright bass.  
  
*Turning her head, she blinks in surprise, a glint in her darker eyes as she can't help but think of those flames. Oh, Daniella honey, why is it you're always so willing to put your hands in the fire?  
  
What he said next stifles laughter in her throat as she's too busy being shocked and amazed someone would ever want that.* Waaaait wait, wait. *Her hand was flapping.* This girl wanted you to...*she gives a barely-containing-laughter 'neeeeigh' and then brightens as she adds,* And you were too... *Dani clucks, loud and proud, an embarrassingly accurate chicken cluck. She lives with brothers, all right?  
  
Now it was her turn to wipe tears out of her eye, a bit in physical pain as she laughs so hard. When she finally quiets, a bit, she adds, off hand,* Huh. Well. You know I really don't think Stef would be opposed to that. She did say the word 'insatiable' always came to mind with how she is with you.  
  
 **Tony:** Had to do that often did you? *He smirks and chuckles again as she clarified that no, she didn't, and he lifts his hands saying* Whatever tickles your pickle, babe. *He smirked and then nodded. It was true, the older, the more experienced. He recommended an older lover to everyone to have at least once in their life.  
  
Daniella's neigh made him snort too, but he was protesting at the chicken clucking (clever, 10 year old boy clever but clever nonetheless)* I went through with it, I was already inside and I wanted to cum, so you bet I did my best *he brayed like a donkey* and -then- I left and never spoke of it again and if you ever speak of it, we'll stop being friends immediately and I'll ask for my amethyst ring back.  
  
*He let her laugh it up, because yes, it was quite funny. The next, he had to smirk but then he shrugged* She's not a deep sleeper...but she'd probably pretend. *He smirks again and then shrugs before asking.*  
  
Okay, most unique location- hospital doesn't count.

  
 **Daniella:** *Brightly, after bursting out into laughter,* Oh, why would I do tell? I'm honored you trusted me with this very deep secret. I'll treat you for a drink.

*Quickly, so as if to hide the fact that she is talking about his brother, she says easily,* Kitchen counter. In an actual Italian restaurant that is. The one down the street? *She pauses when she adds,* ...Look, is it weird that power is such a kink for me?

 **Tony:** *Drinks were always a good plan, though he should really stop giving her permission to interrogate him while drunk because he needed very little pushing to start talking and actually the effort was more used to shut him up again.  
  
He chuckled as she explained why he wouldn't have the need for a t-shirt about this, of course now with two members, he could justify maybe a pin or a button.*  
  
No, that's not freaky. That's pretty normal. Haven't you heard of When You're Mad by Ne-Yo? Basically it. And of course you have a power kink, it goes with the mostly subconscious effort to mate with the alpha male . Olivier's an alpha male, born and raised.

 **Daniella:** *She starts chuckling, shaking her head,* I must have missed that one...Tony, do you know like...every pop song in existence?  
  
*That was certainly how it seemed, anyway. With a little grin on her lips, she adds,* It's all right though, since he seems to like me mad just as much. At least it's even.  
  
*Yes, because this sounds like a healthy relationship Daniella Faye. Her aunt Abi's voice echoes in her ear, along with the caveat and tiny admittance, "not that I didn't fall for the same thing." Of course not, Daniella had said. Difference was Uncle Tristan was an Author, not a mafiosa capo.  
  
She did love difficult things.  
  
With a soft smirk, she hmms in agreement.* Yeah, that's for sure. Except he wants to help people. If he'd been born two centuries ago he'd have been a King. *She sighs, then teases,* You know that makes you Prince though, yeah? And if we're doing the myth here right I still probably end up Morrgan or something...Lord knows I'm not a princess.  
  
 **Tony:** I feel like I was born in the wrong generation. *He nodded, sighing.* Only instead of an 80s child, I should have been a 90s child. Ah well, you take what you get. *Ha, if only that was the actual law of the universe and not you take what you want and fuck anyone who's in the way.*  
  
'Second born, second best.' *He smirks* The Prince of Egypt, 1998.  
  
 **Tony:** Things would not have gone well for me. I'd inherit nothing except maybe I'd be granted a Countship once the royal princes started coming along.  
  
But you're right you're definitely no princess. Maybe Queen of your kingdom, maybe a marriage to unite the houses, maybe it was a double betrayal as you both plotted to kill each other at the wedding anyways- oh, someone write that down.  
  
 **Daniella:** *Chuckling,* You know I can safely say I don't know anyone else who wants to be a 90s child, so you're safe in being unique there. Even if you're not first-born.  
  
*Pft, he would go and quote a nineties movie then. Though she did remember that vaguely.* Yeah...it was 'the heir and the spare' right? *She knew very well that wasn't how Remington had seen it...wow, she'd never met anyone else where the spare was a step up from his actual station. With a grin she adds,* Oh come on, Olivier would have granted you whatever land you wanted. Probably still would. *Oh. Why was she grinning at the idea of Tony becoming a dealer of territory too? Her nose twitches a third time as she screws her face up and says pointedly,* Which is why you are all the more impressive for turning it down. And running off with the exotic foreigner with the otherworldly powers.  
  
*She clears her throat, as if that was a casual statement.* Stef would totally fit as a foreign princess, actually.  
  
*As he continued, she goes wide-eyed and chuckles aloud bubbly with disbelief.* A double marriage betrayal!? What am I, River Song? Pay no attention to the fact I actually do have hallucinogenic lipstick. ...Sweetie.  
  **Tony:** Yep, just in case the first born had an untimely death that may or may not have been caused by the younger brother. *Gasp* Cain and Abel style.  
  
* He chuckles as if how ridiculous a situation that was for Tony at least. He'd never wanted power or influence. To him, those weren't fulfilling things. He wasn't power hungry but he was starting to get actual hungry now. Pizza sounded good, or ooh, a calzone.*  
  
Good thing I don't want any. And besides, I've got my own money, thank you, and I'm almost done paying him back for helping me go to college, not that he knows I've been paying him back. Or maybe he does, he hardly misses a trick. *He shrugs and then laughs. Running off with a foreign princess, okay.*  
  
But haven't you heard? That princess is totally Jonesing for the Leader of the savage Loup-Garou Clan, hidden in the mountains.  
  
*He smirked and then watched her laugh over his conjured plot line, his eyebrows rising.* You scare me, child. Remind me not to let you kiss me. And don't call me sweetie! You're the Amy to my Eleven, not Riverrr.  
  
 **Daniella:** Cain and Abel, okay. *Laughing under her breath she repeats,* I refer you back to the thing as I aforementioned unwaveringly believe.  
  
*Pausing, her eyebrows abruptly knit together and she tilts her head.* You've been paying him back? That's awesome though. *University was expensive, she knew that...but she was equally proud to hear that Olivier had helped pay in the first place. A conscious effort to separate Tony and Remington, she imagined. Tony was right: Olivier hardly ever missed a trick. It...was what made all of this so dangerous.  
  
Her eyes were wide again as he continued.* The leader of the what? *Even before he answers, she snaps her fingers,* I am so disappointed in myself though, I usually get all of these! *She clucks her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Pop culture gods were failing her.  
  
Then she grins.* I like that though. You're my boyyys. Totally. And unwavering belief or not, you *might* have to start to ask permission to hug from my centurion.  



	22. Austritaliench

**Stefanie:** All right. *She holds her hand up against the sunlight, even wearing comically large Gucci sunglasses,* It might no longer be about to burn my skin off but you have to admit that is bloody bright off the sno--oh! *Sidetracked pointing,* Do you see that purse?

  
 **Irene:** It is bright actually *bringing her sunglasses down from the top of her head, beaming brightly* I imagine it'll take some getting used to, dear. *She gasps* That is divine! No but that can't be real English bridle, this is clearly faux.

 

 **Stefanie:** Grazie. *She laughs, even on a dry throat. There was one other upside to the distracting sun; it helped take her mind off her hunger. It had been eight days...she wasn't surprised it was so prevalent. With a tiny whistle as she drops her hand she nods,* I don't know darling--it *is* Paris...*she giggles, taking Irene's hand and darting with them both across the way.*

  
 **Irene:** *Alas, that was the major cons on the list of major fashion houses, and consequently all those trying to make it big: real leather. Despite the most progressive movements, it was still prevalent in the fashion industry. But that looked so genuine, but it couldn't- Irene took Stef's hand and hurried over, or rather half hurried, half pulled.* Doesn't that look like the cervo antik from Prada's fall line in 07?

  
 **Stefanie:** *Honestly, it still surprises her, how warm Irene's wrist was. It was as if every nerve in her body was tuned to seek out the closest vein and lust after it. Yet there was another prevalent want, and that was the adorable chic both of them were admiring and despite the blistering sun she focuses on the leather.* Si! *She says encouragingly, bemused, releasing her hand as she reaches just to pick it up,* It feels real, too...well-*she pauses, then shakes her hand, almost disappointed,* no. It's not. Trust me, I can feel the difference now.

 **Irene:** *No one should blame her enthusiasm alright? She tackled every situation in her life with the same amount of energy. It made some people need a little less Irene time in their life (which was absolute nonsense but if someone wanted to live their life in constant depression from a lack of her, their loss).* You can?! *Irene immediately tries to feel knowing she couldn't because she didn't have vamp powers* Wicked. Well, on the plus side, no animals were harmed in the making of this purse. Nadia might like it actually she's vintage-chic with some bohemian infusion.

 **Stefanie:** *However confused she was by Irene's excitement (and company; an eight-day old vampire was...well, Tony had twenty-five years with his own bloodlust and look), she brightens as much as this ridiculous sun, seeing Rene reach for the bag.* Yeah. One of the perks. *She winked. With a head tilt, she tossed a few curls over her shoulder and nods, absently,* You know, I could see that--she's got the right coloring for it...*She holds a hand up,* I am mostly entirely reliant on your intel here, *she chuckles,* that is of your friends, who...don't mind the newbie vampire. So maybe just Nadia.

 

 **Irene:** Right? Tiny tanned Spanish goddess, yes she'd like this but would she love it? Hmm. *Pfts and then shakes her head smiling* Nah, not just her. *She was about to say that Reid loved blondes but then remembered Reid was a newborn as well, well, more like puppy, for the other side.* Actually I know what she'd love but that's not in my power to provide. Alisha though, she's been dying for one of those purses that you can wrap around your waist and thigh like a holdster? I wonder if they have any around *looks around quickly but it distracted by a shimmery scarf and walks towards it, wrapping it around her neck immediately and strikes a pose* how do I look?

 **Stefanie:** *Grins, a bit sheepish and nods absently,* Well, if it was just her, it’s not like I’d blame them. *She wouldn’t. They hadn’t known her to begin with, and that was before she started guzzling down blood. Continuing to separate the purses as she browses and brushing her thumb through faux fur lovingly, she spins in surprise. Her smirk widens.* Ooohh lala, cheri. You know, I’m really starting to have a thing for scarves…  
  
 **Irene:** *Yes, Irene imagined that some people would be less than understanding. Thankfully, she wasn’t some people. There was only one Irene Burns after all.* Just starting? *She brought her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose and grinned* I’ve been wrapping myself in scarves since I was three years old. They are seriously undervalued. *She unwrapped the scarf from her neck and nodded* Yes, I’m taking this one. Now let’s find one for you!  
  
 **Stefanie:** *She chuckles* More like…I’m starting to appreciate their…versatility. Look for bubblegum pink *she teases gently, deciding for the moment to ignore the many mixed feelings,* Tony appreciates it. *You know, like tying her up, tying him up, the way he yanked her in with it for a kiss, hiding bite marks…* Ha. *Her smirk curls up, borderline evil,* Maybe for him to wear as well.  
  
 **Irene:** *She giggles as she sees the impish smirk on Stef’s face and goes through the scarves, wiggling her eyebrows* Oh you’re bad. Let me guess, he prefers silk over cashmere? *She holds up the two scarves to show them to her, before tilting her head and examining quizzically* Though it looks more like a cashmere and polyester blend.

 **Stefanie:** *Her grin widens purposefully showing all her teeth in pleasure of being called bad. That was new; her hand shoots to cradle her cross as she nods,* Ah, I don't know--he is Italian, and cashmere is just so soft on your skin...actually his skin feels...*She pauses, and then just grins. Curious about the blend, she reaches to feel it, asking lightly,* Have you spoken to him, lately? Olivier mentioned you knew about...well, whatever -us- is. *That wasn't bitter. Really.)

 

 **Irene:** Another perk, I expect. *She teases, nodding her head, vaguely remembering learning about vampires in class earlier this year. She hadn’t been paying much attention though, she and Dillon had been passing notes throughout the class, with a very annoyed Alisha (who had tried taking notes before giving up halfway through the class, though in her defense it was a two hour course) acting as messenger.* Oh yes, we chatted on the phone for a bit. He was a bit wary about today actually; don’t tell him I told you though. *She surveys the scarves again* I am partial to the cashmere one for you and him. It’s a less delicate material, perfect for versatile use.

 

 **Stefanie:** *Beaming, she nods first in agreement, partially amazed that Irene could find this so easy to joke about. Pushing the glasses harder into her head as she thinks the sun was on cue getting brighter, she stills a bit in delight and confusion of her own bemusement to think he was *still* checking up on her.* I won't mention it to him princesa, *smirks light,* ...and you know, I might still break down and eat our waiter, so. *She winks, utterly ignoring the scarf vendor's look,* He was -adorable.- *After a few more moments looking she nods, then teases,* Shall I pick Dillon one out now?

 

 **Irene:** *It didn’t escape Irene that Stefanie was using Italian pet names with her today, not French, for they were in Paris after all, or German…it was German right? Austrian? Was Austrian a language? A question for another time. Si, as her Italian men might say, cierto. (Oh God, was it cierto? She gave up.)* Wasn’t he? I bet he’d taste like cotton candy, he was super cute. *She nodded and then grabbed the two scarves, grinning at the tease* I’ve already bought his present actually. It’s so difficult, because I have to find something that doesn’t look expensive so he can more easily accept it, but that it really is expensive so it’ll last. It’s our first Christmas together, so I want it to be special and perfect. *She nods and then reaches into her purse for the euros to pay for the scarves* You know, chestnuts roasting on an open fire and all that Christmas-y jazz.

 

 **Stefanie:** Cotton candy? *The incredulous repeat was still through a wide grin before she drops her voice a bit (though hey, if they freak this vendor out, think she'd give them a discount?) as she adds,* Thus far it's been more limited to...different alcohols. Like specialized cocktails. *And--and oh they needed to not talk about this, maybe; she could pick up the vender's warm, quick, sedictive heartbeat too easily. Not that thinking about Tony was any less seductive. Irene's next words made that easy to stop thinking about.* Oh, I understand. *Her smile's softening,* You should see about doing a few traditions--you know in Italy they have a grab bag bowl of presents on the Eve? *She grins, now grateful for her glasses for another reason as it hides the instant water in her gaze while she adds,* I'm going to make Chrismbaumbauk too. It's cinnamon bread? We used to make it together every year, the three of us...

 

 **Irene:** *She gasps, placing her hand on her chest before grabbing Stefanie’s hand* No, but I make the best Cotton Candy Cocktail in the world. I need to make it for you, we need to do a liquor run after this and stop by a candy shop. You are going to declare your undying love for me and drop your panties at the same time, trust me. *Then she cleared her throat and gave the vendor a wide smile, telling him to keep the change (in her worst French, ever, and hopefully she didn’t insult his mother) as she took the bag with the scarves and turned back to Stef* I suspect we’ll do that with his family…I’m pretty sure his mother is going to hate me but I’m trying not to be nervous! Performance anxiety issues..ish. *She waves this off, a softer, sadder even if she didn’t mean it to be, smile appearing on her face* That sounds delicious. You should also try to make a new tradition! Some…Austritaliench new thing! It could be all the rage.

 

 **Stefanie:** Oh but dahling-! *She speaks quickly, trying to ignore the rush of warmth from Irene's fingers clutching her marble skin. Three bags might not have been enough to come out she thinks, in retrospect, though she'd felt she gorged. And fine, she also moves on quick, because her accent peeked in a very familiar way over 'darling.'* You already had me at your Loubitans! *Though considering the look from the vendor, Stefanie leans in pointed to kiss Irene's cheek as she adds,* Though I'll never turn down a free drink. *Look away from her neck. Right now. Shimmying her way free and plucking at her cross nervously, she crosses the sidewalk as she continues in a low chuckle,* An Austritaliaench tradition...Si! If you come...if you escape the overprotecti

ve Italian Mum. Lord knows the D'Grey's could afford the entire extravaganza easily--Olivier--*she pauses walking, turning and tucking a hair behind her ear as she listens to the rapidly increasing heartbeat maybe a block off. Then she sighs, nose wrinkling,* Just because I said 'D'Grey'? Really?!

 

 **Irene:** *Well that was also a familiar pet name though not of the Italian kind. Mentally brushing it away, she found herself giggling at Stefanie’s words and then smirking as she continued the playful little act once and kissed her cheek. Irene made sure to turn her head ever so slightly and linger, playing along happily and then laughing again* Brilliant then, I’ll have you all buzzed and pliant in no time. *She winks and departs from the vendor with a little wave, crossing the street a few steps behind Stefanie* Oh, I’ll definitely stop by! I’ve promised Tony I’d let him see me opening his gift, apparently his favorite part of Christmas is the reactions. *She looks around a bit confused* Why, what happened? Is it like Beetlejuice, if you say his name three times he comes? *She pauses and then realizes what she’d said, grinning and nodding* Oh that’s a good one, I’m saving that one for future use.

 

 **Stefanie:** *Tony did live for the reaction shots. The fact seems to strike her hard though she had actually known that; watching him light up when she opened the shirt he snuck off to buy her in Roma had been a highlight of the trip. He'd looked like a cross between a ten year old and a puppy, all eagerly wide-eye nodding and prodding her to open-open-open and turning affectionately nuzzling (not to mention his tongue) once she slipped it on.  
  
But the rest of that day was too vivid in mind, so she lets it pass without a comment and seizes on to the fact Irene promised to stop by. Excellent. The more people she could learn to be around again, so much the better. Then she sighs, laughing at the comparison,* Oh, please let me be there when you call him Beetlejuice. *Then she gestures with her shoulder,* Nah it was-see them? Moment I said the name their hearts

started racing. Distracting. *Stef takes another careful breath, trying to avoid inhaling their scent (again) and alters with a tiny smile,* For me. Anyway. You were saying. Christmas plans. Dillon's mother. And Tony thinking I'm going to eat the whole mall without him getting to share.  

 

 **Irene:** *Irene wasn’t usually discreet, no matter how hard she tried to be. So her reaction when someone mentioned someone else was to immediately look towards them, even if she specifically instructed not to look that way. It was very a knee-jerk reaction! Like an inquisitive owl, her head perked up, head turned while she hooted a ‘who who?’ into the night. Well, now it was daytime, but, details.* Gotcha. You know, there’s power in a name. Usually, it’s overinflated but whose heart –wouldn’t- jump a little, know what I’m saying? *Her wink was dramatic, intending to distract her from the fluttery heartbeats of the other people to her much calmer one. There was no way they smelled better than her though, they were French after all, but nothing she could do about that.*

 

Right! Yes *she bounced in place briefly before continuing to walk* I have it all planned! I’ve managed to incorporate Christmastime with all my loved ones, even my unloved ones but that’s alright, father always goes to visit his mistress on the day of anyways so I won’t be missed on the day! Christmas Eve will be the majority of the alone time with Dillon, as the actual Christmas Day his house will be overrun, apparently. I’ve no idea what a busy household actually looks like, I’m really hoping I’m not claustrophobic. Also, that reminds me, I have no idea what to get his mother! I can’t just show up with nothing for the matron of the household. *See how she was expertly avoided the topic of Tony believing she was going to eat the mall? She was quite proud of herself.*

 

 **Stefanie:** *The wink and lean in helped, as she suspected Irene meant it to. Gorged or not, truth was simple: she was new, she was hungry, it was a basic fact of her not-living (but you know, self-chosen so good for you!) -- life now.  
  
(She really needs to stop quoting Tony internally though.)

 

Irene's smirk and wink weren't as distracting as her heartbeat was, but she settles to the steadier beat. Or at least, she stops picturing the couple's rushing, wine-colored bloodstream--so ahem, yes, plus. Relieved as Irene takes her not-subtle hint, she turns and rushes them on to the nearest store, choosing to take them out of the sun as she listens, hard. Then blinks, in surprise,* His Mistress. On Christmas Day? -Ugh-, classy.  
  
*Irene was a master at appearing as if she didn't care, Stef realized, but she heard the slight tick in her lung, the restrained sigh. Truth was though, Stefanie wasn't sure she needed her vampire perks to know: she recognized the constricting and bitterness as how she used to speak about Hans not being home.*  
  
I, say this conversation is in desperate need of a Cotton Candy cocktail. *Stefanie has straightened her back, aiding her prim voice,* As for the mother...ask Dillon? She might have given him a list. Otherwise I imagine uhm...wine, and strategically letting her see you give Dillon something handmade that makes him smile. Is there a better gift for an Italian mother than seeing that you're taking care of him...? *She pauses and then admits,* I might have done that with Tony's nonna...I mean, I'd do it with his mother but you know. Olivier only just met her three days ago, so.

 

 **Irene:** Right? *She waves her hand* At least be original about it. *Usually she spent Christmases, those that she didn’t spend at school, with her mother but she was never fully lucid during them anyways. One day away wasn’t going to hurt, and she was still going to be back home in time that it was still Christmas anyways.* Oh yes, mighty need. Candy is dandy, and with liqueur it’s quicker. *Walking into the store, she instantly spots a dress rack and seems to glide over to them, and Stef beside her nearly did glide actually). Pausing as Stef offers her advice, her hand stops at a floor length satin spaghetti strap gown and repeats* Handmade? I’m doomed. *It’s not that Irene bought people’s affections…it’s that she kept their affections with really amazing new and shiny things.* I can’t even make popsicle stick houses. *Could she buy something that was handmade by someone else? Someone with actual skill with their hands?  
  
Well, Irene had skills with her hands but they weren’t the kind mothers wanted to know about. She’d have to think of something though, the wine would probably be best. She’d have to ask Tony about it, he knew wine whereas Irene knew…how to get drunk.* I might actually meet his mother, weirdly enough. If she and her family come by on Christmas from Ireland, how weird is that?

 

 **Stefanie:** Seriously, *as well as 'creep', but she wouldn't insult Rene's father outright yet,* there is a tragic lack of originality in this world. I'm so glad for people like us to combat it.*Yeah, she hears as well as sees this time the look of 'well, I'm fucked then (and not the good kind)' that Irene has, but before she could offer to help out for 'handmade' she's startled.* Wait, meet Tony's mother? Belle?  
  
*Twenty-five years without a Christmas card to Olivier and now this woman just was everywhere? Yes, a little weird. But maybe good. Stefanie can't rightly judge anymore. She was reminded of the first time she met Irene - of what Ansel said, that her family belonged on ITV's Horror hour - and firmly puts it from mind, clearing her throat.* If you do, let me know what she's...well, like? Olivier didn't say much of anything when he came home...Tony looked hopeful though. I think. That poor woman. I can't-  
  
*Actually she could. Stefanie chuckles out bitterly, hand lifting to clench the silver railing as she smirks to add,* Actually I wish I could say I can't imagine being forced to stay away from your child for fear of their life but you know, I can, so... 

 

 **Irene:** *Irene nodded* Yeah, she married one of Dillon’s cousins. Second cousin? Once removed? That he calls uncle? I don’t know the lingo- family, they’re family. *Irene didn’t have any weird extended familial relations to get mixed up over except Odette, and she was disowned a long time ago. Her band was currently touring the States though!*  
  
I’ll definitely let you know. Anything that Tony would say is completely idolized and anything Olivier would say is completely vilified, there needs to be an impartial judge. And I pride myself on being able to be completely impartial. *She beamed and then nodded, sure of herself. Nope, there was not one instance of her having demoralizing prejudice against someone. Not at all. Stop searching, there was nothing to be found.*  
  
That sucks, *she sighed and then smirked* no pun intended. Wow, you’re right, we’re in desperate need of a cocktail. *She chuckles and takes out a sea-green wool dress* Ugh, this looks so comfortable.

 

 **Stefanie:** Italians and their bloodlines. *She jokes casually, waving it all off with a chuckle.*  
  
Right. *She cocks her head, trailing a finger a long the rack now as she slowly feels the crawling hunger slip away as she continues,* Well, speaking as someone who did know their father, kind of? *But she'd been eleven, and a brat the first time she met him and Remington D'Grey hadn't paid her much attention. He was hardly the first man to make that mistake.* I have to say biased or not I'd side more on the idolizing of Belle. Or at least on the vilifying of Remington. Not that I don't get Olivier--his Dad treated him like a little prince. And didn't introduce Tony. Well. That was partially because Tony was hiding when we got there, but.   
  
*Eh, her points stood. Her throat was all dry again too unhelpfully: Marcel had asked where Tony was as, after all they were supposed to be there to celebrate/welcome him, which made Remington look like the fucking creep he was, making Marcel and Hans both step in protectively around her.   
  
She clears her throat again, focusing on the sea-foam and wrinkles her nose, head shaking.* Eugh, no. Ooh though-- *She peels the rack back to lift a cerulean silk-lookalike short gown up, holding it near Irene with a smirk,* This totally, brings out your eyes. And with that shimmer in your new scarf...?

 

 **Irene:** *She found it a little cute that Stefanie said ‘or not’, as if there was even the tiniest chance she wasn’t biased, puh-leaze. You couldn’t be in a relationship with Tony D’Grey, notice for who those puppy eyes turned squishy and for who they turned icy cold, and not be biased. Now if the other side of the story were more willingly shared, maybe Stef would have a chance of being less biased but that was a whole other shish-kebob.*  
  
Favoritism, now that I –do- understand. *Irene nodded, preventing herself from smirking in that bitter way Stef kept doing. She wasn’t one for bitterness to begin with: new year, new start! That was Irene’s motto, one of the many. She should really write a book of inspirational quotes.*  
  
Yes! *That was her instant reaction, reaching for the dress immediately* I need to try this on! Let’s go!


	23. Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There should be snow on Christmas Eve, honestly."

Thank heavens it was Harper's family throwing this party.  
  
Eliza was standing in one of her dresses purchased during that period where she was supposedly dead on the back hill of their estate, breathing out to herself in relief of fresh air. There was no way she could have been inside for that long otherwise, but he got that, they understood that too. Half of her bemoaned the loss of the white blanket that saw fit to melt right before the holidays, and the other half of her was delighted it meant they could have the party outside. Still, champagne (and yes it was the real thing) in hand, she'd slipped over the hill when she spotted Al's grandmother coming near her for the fifth time and blew Gramps a kiss for distracting her long enough to disappear. Her father was somewhere with Dev, muttering threats he didn't mean as Tony had apparently bought him the suit to wear -- her mother was somewhere else pretending they hadn't come to this thing together and in the same car and no they were not dating stop asking them dammit. Rory was there, probably at this moment off being perfect and wonderfully helpful and rescuing someone who didn't know how to make bouillabaisse to Lyndsi Brackner's expectations. At least, he'd been a perfect gentleman when he spun her for a dance earlier -- the memory fills her cheeks damask and she downs her champagne, until a voice interrupts her and it skips over her lips instead as she presses palm over heart.  
  
"You know, as appreciative as I am, I really think there ought to be snow on Christmas Eve," the voice said and as she turned to look at Hans, she tilts the glass over her lips to distort the momentary wide smile.  
  
There was no hiding her eyes -- their brightness in the afternoon light made it seem from comparison late evening instead, shining like the Biblical star of Bethlehem. Or Yule's light returning to the world through the Oak King, as she knew it was properly, for Eliza had stopped being fooled by the religious fairy tales.  
  
"Hans," she exhales. The breath was light as the snow he claimed to yearn for. Her glass lowers as her gaze darts over the smile he gives her. There's a flicker in the corner of her mouth as she thinks, about damn time she saw that smile again.   
  
But then again, he hadn't smiled quite like he is now -- delight with a touch of nostalgia, a hint of regret -- ever before. Another flutter answers his nod in her chest, one she can't blame on the wind like she can the one in her hair. If her eyes were the sea, her hair were the waves.   
  
He was wearing a tuxedo. A freaking tuxedo! Grey, lean and with a white shirt, but there was a sprig of holly pinned on his lapels and here he was, the murderer who had tortured so many people, at the Brackner family reunion Christmas Yule party, in a freaking tuxedo--! Irritation creeping up her spine, she bridges her palm on her hip and toasts him with the glass as she responds.  
  
"Oh and let me guess what causes your appreciation. My short skirt, perhaps?"  
  
Mouth opening with the bashful bemusement she so readily inspired in him, Hans licks his top lip and grips his wrists behind his back as he considers her words.  
  
"Well, I won't deny my enjoyment of that." He concedes, graceful as ever. Eliza downs another sip of champagne. The last time he looked at her like that...  
  
"Good." She says, stiff and prim through a smirk, "I'd be insulted."  
  
"A crime I'd consider my worst."  
  
Hans Lawrence Ricard was dramatically incredibly massively undeniably unfair. She suddenly felt the weight of how alone they were. Everyone had gone home and all her friends were with their families here at this party elsewhere, finally safe from any immediate danger. There was no emergency she had to be concerned about, no secret plan, no hiding. And just for a moment she just was a girl standing on the hill in a dress being smiled at by a beautiful boy (who wore a tuxedo).  
  
"Seriously!?" Eliza asks, but breaks into a laugh when she realized he mouthed it with her.  
  
He knew her that well -- understands her enough that he shares the moment and the laugh with her and even though they were just standing there where, as he said, by all rights there should be snow considering the time of year -- she was warm. The moment was intimate. One of the few she still could remember in her life unconnected to guilt and unease, and that made it matter all the more.  
  
"All right," he allows with a twist on his lips and clapping his hands together behind his back, "maybe not my worst."  
  
"Maybe not," her mockery was that of a Southern Belle and she wished abruptly for more champagne. He only shrugs at her. The gaze seems to tell her plain the maybe for him wasn't optional: he did still consider to hurt her the worse of his crimes.  
  
(Un.fair.)  
  
"And yes," she finally answered as she set the flute down on stone pillars before continuing to walk the hill with him, "I do wish there was snow."  
  
"It doesn't seem quite right without it, does he?" Hans was staying a step half behind her with a look of undeniable triumph she wasn't going to acknowledge being amused by in this decade. Try the next.  
  
"Nope. Oh God. You aren't going to quote some English poem on snow, are you?"  
  
"I prefer 'O Tannenbaum' to be perfectly honest, Eliza."  
  
The abrupt reminder of his heritage makes her stall the slow walk and she nods at him, feeling better hidden by the hill.  
  
"What are you doing here?" She asks in a soft voice. For the first time, she relies on those Wolf abilities to make sure she knows he heard her. He stalls alongside her, turns closer and then answers without shame, "To see you."  
  
"D'Grey said you'd left." Her words were quick. Otherwise, she'd think about his too much.  
  
"Not yet." He says, and she doesn't miss the click in his jaw as she mentions their friend. Well, she supposed she can't blame him for being irritated with Olivier, but she brushes hair out of her eyes and defends him anyways with, "You know he didn't want to leave you, right?"  
  
Hans waves this off, apparently unbothered and then looks over her shoulder at the house briefly, confusing her.   
  
"What?" She spins, but doesn't see whatever he's looking for in the cursory glance, aggravated by his dismissal of defending Oli.  
  
"We're ah--not as alone as I'd hoped."

++

There was so much happiness at this party that Irene was bordering on being overwhelmed by it! It was a good feeling though. Who knew the Brackners could actually smile without smirking! Not to mention, Irene was spending a Christmas surrounded by friends and loved ones (or, you know, close enough to Christmas that it counted)! In celebration, her Saint Nicholas hat was sparkly, pink, and the fluffy ball at the end had a mistletoe. Kisses all around!  
  
Her digital camera hung from her wrist and she was snapping pictures left and right (to her credit, she was only in about a quarter of them- half at most!). Her quest for more pictures and a certain someone that had somehow evaded all her pictures led her to the grounds, singing her version of Jingle Bells.  
  
"Jingle Bells! Red cocks swell! Dirty sweaty lay! Oh what fun it is to ride, and bounce, and grind, and sway, oh! Jingle bells! sex does smell! Quickie in-the-middle-of-the day! Oh what- there you are!" Irene broke off her singing as she saw a mane of blonde hair and hurried, beam wide.  
  
"One quick pic and I'll- oh, sorry I didn't realize..." Irene looked between Eliza and a man she hadn't seen before and spent a few comical seconds with narrowed eyes before her mouth opened with an 'ooohhhh'. This was Hans! Wow, how had she not seen him face to face until now?  
  
"Happy Christmas," o death, destroyer of worlds, demon-wolf, "Hans."  
  
"Oh no please--", Eliza started, which Hans cuts off by simply holding up his fingers, snapping them, and promptly turning her camera off. When Eliza glares dagger-eyes sideways at him, the sheepish triumphant look she saw before has only grown as if to say 'please, could be a lot worse.' Eliza wrinkles her nose at the truth. Hans likely would have delighted in breaking Rene's camera before. (Something Eliza at that moment, if there were any pictures of Hans and herself on there, was not above.)  
  
"Happy Christmas, Irene," he offers pleasantly with a nod, his smirk flicking up when he seems to recall she'd never met him face to face before. Ah. So his knowing her name...  
  
Well. She'd met Ansel, she'd know how he knew it.   
  
"It isn't what it looks like," Eliza said hurriedly to Irene, immediately proving it was exactly what it looked like. Hans still smirks and feigns ignorance, asking, "And what does it look like, Eliza?"  
  
Oh look! Her dagger eyes were back. Wonderful. They were almost worth the untimely interruption.   
  
"You just showed up at the party, I mean, I didn't know you were coming."   
  
"Now on the matter of coming, I seem to recall--"  
  
"Hans." She cut through in a no-no sense tone that made his good humor still and quiet. After looking at her a long moment he turns back to Irene and says cordially, "I like your hat."  
  
Irene tried to turn her camera back on and then frowned as the screen read that the battery was drained, she frowned. Aside from it being a neat trick, that was seriously uncool.  
  
"Thankfully, I keep a spare!" Irene reached into her cleavage and took the battery out, quickly replacing it but warning, "don't worry, I'll keep it off." Irene knew why discretion was crucial now and she had a sudden feeling Eliza would have been more willing to destroy it than Hans. It made sense after all Hans was a fugitive and he was only hated by...three quarters of the attending members at this party? The other quarter didn't have an opinion, which in Irene's perspective was worse. She'd rather someone think the worst of her than nothing at all! She was Irene Burns.  
  
"Oh?" Irene wanted to say that it didn't look like anything but now obviously, it was something. Looking between the two of them as they bantered, Irene was struck with a sudden revelation. Oh no, she shipped it. For that moment, she shipped it hard. Damn.  
  
"Thank you," Irene accepted genuinely, swinging the little fluffy ball back and forth with a smile, "I like your suit. Men can never go wrong in a suit. Tux, birthday, they're all a-okay." Irene turned back to Eliza, needing details so badly she felt like she was gonna shake in excitement like her puppy Oscar Poe Burns, and similarly pee herself.  
  
Looking back at Hans, she felt the need to clarify, "Well-dressed, 10 points. Bringing out the dominatrix in Liza, 125 points. Mind controlling my boyfriend, minus a trillion." There were obviously a lot, a l o t, of grievances but the guy had been in all definitions of the word dumped. Plus, he didn't really care and she knew that. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't going to let him know of her displeasure. That was it though, she had voiced it, unpleasantness over.  
  
"You're not gonna do anything else naughty, I hope. Santa knows," she tapped her nose and then wagged her finger at him, "and my complexion couldn't handle another crisis this close to Christmas, I really can't. Eliza," back to looking at Liza (she felt like a Ping pong ball), "he's gonna behave right?"  
  
"Is Ansel your boyfriend already then?" Is what Hans says first, proving in the very least he gained another 125 points as he brought out the Dominatrix side once more as Eliza slaps his arm for the comment.  
  
"Ah," is all he says to help swallow a laugh before standing back up with his hands back behind his back and seems to consider Irene's words anew, only as she pleads with the blonde beside him, he indulges her answering.  
  
"He'll behave." She swears as he eyes her sideways, "As much apparently as he is capable."  
  
"I thought I was here to bring untold riot and destruction." He parrots still lightly with a cock of his head.   
  
"Because you came to see me?" She shoots back, uncomfortably revealing both of them and deciding she just couldn't care. _(Couldn't.)_  
  
"Just wait," he says with that triumphant smirk back and looks back at Irene, "as I imagine you'll have much to say now. While we're on the subject however, would it make any difference if I told you I have no further quarrel with you and won't hurt you or your loved ones?"  
  
"Only in his wettest dreams," she countered quickly because opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish was unacceptable behavior and no one, no one left Irene without several witty comebacks. Her brow wrinkled in distaste just at the thought of it. Speaking of already boyfriends though! Hello, former alpha wolf wearing a tux and crashing a party where he's decidedly uninvited just to see Eliza! Were they not going to talk about this?  
  
Oh but her heart was with Rory. He was, but, Eliza and Hans, just, did- no. No. Threesome, they could have a threesome! Everybody wins! No harm done! There, she solved this problem quickly enough. Next, she'll tackle world hunger and world peace. She had a feeling at least one of them could be resolved by relieving sexual tension in the form of three-or-moresomes.  
  
"It would," Irene nodded, "if you meant it and I can tell you meant it. I might need Eliza to help me translate, and it's definitely no apology, but baby steps. Small tip, going along with what I say gets you and Eliza alone time much faster than otherwise." Because she might feel wary, but that was in general about leaving Eliza, or Nadia for that matter, alone for too long, but it was obvious her bestie would prefer she scatter too. Irene tried not to take it too personally, because it wasn't about her after all, (hard enough admitting it), it was about them and their weird little bubble. Irene had never felt like a third wheel in her life, IN HER LIFE, ever ever ever, (it was important, so she stressed it), but man these two just standing together, breathing the same air was enough to make her feel odd one out.  
  
Irene didn't sign up for these feelings.  
  
"Translate?" Hans asks, as if on instinct, startled enough by the amusement that it covers his aggravation that she knew he wants to be alone. Of course, perhaps he should get used to it, the idea that he'll be eavesdropped as opposed to eavesdropper. Great. More things to thank their wonderful host for.   
  
"Oh," Eliza said quickly with a headshake, reliant on tease, "don't insult his grasp on the English language. It's his baby."  
  
Hans snorted. No, he knew what he was going to have to get used to: the idea that he was being woobified by Eliza and threatened without a pack to back him up. Which did bring him back to what he was doing there, admitted. As he looks sideways at her, he decides to indulge (even as he rolled his eyes).  
  
"What you said, Eliza." He offers, to her obvious discomfort and flush, before he takes her hand in one quick reach, looking back to Irene.   
  
"And I won't let her turn into a pumpkin."  
  
With that, he'd tugged her into his side and darted forward with her tucked under his arm. Stalling near the lake, he pauses as she squeaks to let het go and holds a hand up an inch back. From where Irene was standing, she'd see silhouettes of black and green silk, backlit by a low hanging sun cast off the ripples in the water. She wouldn't be able to hear them, so she can't know that he first says, "I was considering offering you a first class ticket," or hear Eliza quietly repeat his name before his raised hand wards off her calm objection. Irene couldn't make out his soft smile of understanding -- the one that steals Eliza's breath and calls one up in response. Hans doesn't have to say that she won't go with him or ask why to know. After licking his lip as he idly considers the strange truth that he's jealous of wind lucky enough to touch her skin, he says instead, _"We both know you're not ready. Perhaps one day, in a year or ten, you'll turn up at my door...and we can share what the world has to offer."_  
  
Irene wouldn't hear Eliza repeat his name or the way her heart flutters and skips -- for he could still do that, he still had that ability silver potion or not, friendless or not, he could still make out how he affects her heart. But Irene would see him lean in. He finishes in a whisper, "and let me show you what the world has to offer." She would see him near her friend, face shielded by strands of blonde tangled in the wind, and she does see the sweet kiss he presses to her cheek.   
  
And then he's gone, and Eliza's just watching the empty space where he was, a smile on her lips and tear caught in the corner of her mouth that tastes like questions and what might have been.


	24. Christmas Eve.

It was Christmas Eve. The timing couldn't have been worse, it was only a small detail on the long list of things that had gone wrong. It was just one day, one simple day, not unlike any other day. There was only a light dusting of snow at the park, the rest was ice or brown from the mud that had been created by the ice and snow melting at high noon. A light wind blew strands of her hair in front of her face as she sat on a park bench, her gloved hands inside of the pocket of her tattered men's coat. It wasn't pretty, but it did it's job.  
  
Christmas Eve, and her family was trying to go through it, pretending everything was alright. Her brothers and Nora were all back home, their grandmother visiting. The rest of her family -her uncle who only saw her once a year, an aunt who despised her for looking so much like her mother, a fistful of cousins- wouldn't show up this year. They barely made it years previous, they surely weren't going to show their faces around this year. In times of crisis, family stuck together. Maybe someone should tell them that.  
  
The news of the 'tragic loss' in her family came a week earlier. Audrey happened to be at her uncle's home, checking up on her Nana, when a knock came on the door. It was a heavy sound, or at least that's how it had seemed to Audrey. The person had knocked thrice but the second and last knock sounded like they dragged on the wooden panel rather than being lifted and rapped. Then a quiet, firm yet not unkind, and oddly familiar voice traveled through the air. A shiver had gone down her back as she attributed it to the cold that had been let it, and so she had moved away from the living to peer at who it was at the door.  
  
"Audrey?" The same voice asked her now, cutting through the quiet whistle of the wind and the creak of weak twigs and branches that were a simple step away from snapping. Audrey looked up at as a bundled Tony D'Grey approached her, his eyes uncertain and his demeanor hesitant. The same chill ran up her spine that had the day he had visited at her uncle's house. Audrey recognized it for what it was now: a warning, a red flag for a dangerous threat. Even still, she did not move away or move forward to stand, shake his hand, or hug him.  
  
"Antonio." Her voice cut across the chill with a frozen blade, a cold more invasive than the one currently around them. It was Tony's first warning that something was wrong. A part of Audrey wished she could fool him, be able to carry on an act of ignorance long enough to surprise him but that wasn't her specialty. That was his.  
  
For one brief moment, the only thing that had crossed Audrey's mind as she had seen him standing in that threshold in a two piece suit and a badge in hand was damn, that man should always wear suits or nothing. Her childhood crush had long abated, and a far less innocent outlook had crossed her mind, for one brief moment. That time, it was she who had spoken his name in a question, unsure if it was really him, and confused as to why he would be there.  
  
"Hasn't been six years already?" He had asked, momentarily ignoring her uncle as he traveled down memory lane almost simultaneously with her. Quick math had let her know that it had only been five, but that's not what she chose to say. Before she could put voice behind her words, Antonio had excused himself and a solemn look had been back on his face. He wanted to talk to Emily's father, her uncle; he had some grave news.  
  
"May I sit?" He asked, though he had already moved closer to her and the bench with every intention of sitting down. Would it matter if she said no? Maybe, but she wanted answers first and foremost so she nodded. She would worry about everything else later, when she could breathe normally again. It didn't feel like she could; it felt like Audrey would now have to learn how to breathe with only one lung and a damaged windpipe.  
  
"You said you wanted to talk," he began hesitantly, unwilling to remain in awkward silence, in any silence probably. From what little she remembered of Tony, he could barely keep from talking all the time and leaving nothing else for anyone to say. It was clear obvious that the still teenage man she had known wasn't the same that sat next to her or had walked into her home.  
  
"I do," Audrey agreed even as she continued to look ahead at some of the ice skaters out on the frozen pond. Audrey had never gone ice skating other than a rink, and hadn't let her siblings do any different. She knew better than most that Mother Nature wasn't one to push too far or test. The ice pond would melt, the ice would be too thin, and someone would fall through the ice and get trapped. This confrontation felt just like that, walking on ice.  
  
Audrey turned her head now to fully look at him, not only out of the corner of her eye but face him directly. He was still dressed in a suit, with a warm coat and a scarf. Perhaps he was even carrying the fake badge again. If he was, she knew where it would be: his left breast pocket. He had slipped it in and out of there before, as if he did that all the time.  
  
How could she have been so stupid? Audrey's teeth gritted together momentarily, a fact that Tony did not miss, and the heat started leaving her in waves, melting the ice nearby. Controlling herself, with her eyes still trained on Antonio, she cut right to the chase.  
  
"You're not from Interpol, so cut the shit." It had been a good cover, Audrey admitted that. She didn't even question it a week ago. She knew he had majored in criminal justice while her cousin majored in forensics, and it only seemed logical for Antonio to be working not for the United States but in Europe, trying to make a difference in the countries he'd grown up, based directly in France. Audrey had never been naive. That was a trait you couldn't afford living like she did, but in that moment, believing Antonio about being with the international police and requesting to bring the news personally to her family was about the most naive she'd be.  
  
"No," Tony admitted, not willing to lie further, "I'm not."  
  
Audrey was only somewhat appeased he didn't try to lie to her again. It wouldn't stop her coming at him hard, but that was what the public location was for. She didn't want him at her house, with her siblings and her family. She didn't want to meet him in private either because she wanted potential witnesses. All around them were children laughing and having snowball fights with the smallest bit of snow they could find, making snow angels, or skating in the pond. Parents were mostly seated on benches like her, trying their best to stay warm and worrying about their children getting sick from the cold. If he tried anything, someone was going to see.  
  
And if -she- tried anything, intentionally or not, being in public would be enough to pull her back from rash action. Hopefully.  
  
"Tell me how Emily really died." Her jaw trembled at the end and fighting to keep it still she clenched her mouth shut and waited. Audrey had caught Antonio unawares, with no idea what to say. There was a first time for everything it seemed. His previous, undoubtedly rehearsed, story still rang through her ears.  
  
"Emily was abducted by the group of terrorists that attacked Notre Dame," he began to explain as he sat at one of her aunt's plastic covered couches, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together and hanging from his lap.  
  
"We found her body buried in the crypts."  
  
Tony cleared his throat now and began, "It's like I told you-"  
  
"Bullshit. Maybe I'll believe that she was taken by the Death Eaters, fine," Audrey swallowed, her throat dry, "but you're keeping something from me. So you're going to tell me everything, now."  
  
Tony hesitated, proving her right in her knowledge that he had kept the truth from her and her family. She understood the details that had to be disregarded because of her mother's family being muggles, as Emily herself didn't have any magic, but there was something further here and it wasn't just a nagging feeling at the back of her mind either, she had proof.  
  
Not proof in the form of verifiable qualitative information, but instead what Audrey had gleamed after a visit to the mortuary. Antonio said the body had been transferred there so that they could claim her and pay their respects. With an irreconcilable aunt and an uncle with a weak stomach, Audrey had offered to identify the body.  
  
A white blanket had covered her cousin, and pulled down just enough to see her face. She had several cuts on her face alone, and Audrey shuddered to think of what the rest of her body would look like. She stared blankly, unable to form words or a reaction until Emily's fiancée Luca came through the heavy metal doors and cried over her corpse. Audrey had to pull him back, held him as he cried, gave as much comfort as she could until she found herself crying too.  
  
Luca had been escorted out of the room by the mortician and Audrey was left alone with the body of her cousin, the woman who had been one of her best friends. Realizing Antonio had skimmed over details before, she hadn't shaken off the feeling there was something else here, and the electric shudder that had ran down her sound.  
  
Audrey used to have problems with her magic. Being told by her mother she was a demon for nearly a decade, Audrey at first had been afraid of her power. The professors at Hogwarts weren't much better. Few had an idea of her magic, but none could understand why wand magic went so awry. She barely passed any classes, because any basic spell would turn into a destructive force when used by her. Eventually, she sought help on her own: read the majority of the books in the restricted section, consulted with witches and wizards from schools like Durmstrang, and practiced by herself. Audrey preferred it that way. She wasn't used to depending on other people for anything, much less for help with herself. Audrey was still learning now, less frequently after dropping out and working two jobs, but she a natural mastery for a power mostly met with fear.  
  
A relatively simple spell could show her the last image of Emily's life. It was based on the belief that in brutal, horrific deaths, the energy caused an imprint of the victim's last image to appear on the eye. Dark witches and wizards used the spell, centuries old, for vengeance when justice was unreachable by common means. She wouldn't know until after if she would seek out the same goal.  
  
"I saw you," Audrey spoke, the horrific image seared into her brain. His mouth covered in blood, the whites of his eyes completely red, pupils pitch black, and veins fit to bursting around his eyes. That face had been the last thing that Emily had ever seen. Audrey swallowed again, wetting her throat so that she could keep talking over the whistle of the wind and the drifting sound of children playing, excited to wake up tomorrow with presents under a tree.  
  
"What are you talking about?," he asked, and Audrey swore she had felt some hint of fear in his voice. Good, she thought, it wasn't nowhere near fair but it was a start because even though he had no idea what she was referring to, her could still feel the deep anger that was slipping with every word.  
  
"I I.D.'ed the body," Audrey explained with no noticeable fluctuation in her voice, "I saw her lying down on a metal slab and do you know what I thought about first? That she would hate being out in public without eyeliner." Her lips twisted, an ugly expression stuck between grief and fondness.  
  
"And then I managed to find enough strength to cast a spell, and do you know what I saw?" Audrey asked as she remembered placing her hands over her cousin's terribly cold eyes and casting the appropriate incantation. Their eyes had open in unison, both of them covered in a milky white lens as Audrey essentially stared through Emily's eyes.  
  
"You," she spat out, a shudder running down her spine, "A monstrous, terrible, you. The last thing she ever saw. You told us that you were with the team that found her, but she saw you alive Antonio. More demon than human, now tell me!" The air crackled with electricity, and Audrey found herself needing to move backwards against the bench, and for the first time in minutes had to look away from Antonio's face.  
  
"What did you do to my cousin, Antonio?"  
  
"Audrey," he began, his voice pained and his tone hoarse, "I can't-"  
  
"Can't what?!" She snapped back, turning her neck almost painfully to face him again. Realizing that he was rising, Audrey stood as well, her mouth open in the affronted aghast. "Can't sit down and take responsibility for your actions?! Tell. Me." Audrey ordered, her voice struggling to keep composed.  
  
"I can't, I don't know how-," Audrey interrupted him again, grabbing his wrist painfully to tug him to face her again. It was more the surprise of her ability to do so than anything else that managed to get Tony to shut up and pay attention long enough to consider her yelled demand.  
  
"Tell me!"  
  
He took his wrist back, pushing her back instinctively. Audrey stumbled, catching herself before she fell over backwards on the bench and took a few steps back to him. His eyes were wide before they narrowed. Tony looked at her like most who had come in contact with her abilities did. Awe, fear, and it was only a matter of time before disgust crept up in there too. Presently, guilt wasn't letting him feel much more.  
  
Audrey calmed her breathing, attempted to steady her heartbeat but such a feat was currently beyond her capabilities when she was so focused on the man in front of her. She studied every twitch of his face, every spare movement, so she could better gauge the truth. Now with his teeth clenched and his hands curled into fists, he was defensive, ready to fight back.  
  
"You killed her," she accused in a hiss, knowing the truth before he had to speak it. As the words reached his ears, his shoulders dropped, his face crumpled, and she was proved correct.  
  
The hot rage turned cold once more, freezing deep in her bones. Tony moved to wrap the coat further around himself at the sudden chill. It wouldn't work to help him any. That kind of cold wasn't stopped by layers of insulated clothing, despite the magic helping keep it warm. It was unstoppable, because it was old. Cold was even older than death, and just as capable of choking life.  
  
"You killed her," she repeated in a monotonous tone, her body shivering as she inched away from him, taking steps backwards. He didn't stop her, and she realized he was waiting for her to turn around and run away. The expectant look on his face jarred her out of her automatic movements, making her take a step forward instead, despite every fiber of her being telling her to go the opposite way. He's dangerous, he's a killer, he's a monster, a voice echoed in her head. The echo that spoke of him being a friend, Emily's friend, a person she admired died out quickly enough, and was never heard from again.  
  
"Why?" she asked, needing to know everything. Most didn't need more than the first fact. But let no one say that Audrey Powell wasn't thorough. She needed to hear it out of his own mouth, needed to hear him admit to it and explain.  
  
"Audrey, don't put yourself through this," Tony almost pleaded, his head shaking from side to side, "don't."  
  
"You can stop pretending to care, Antonio, just tell me why! Why did you turn my cousin into your own personal canvas?!" Her hair blew into her teeth as she spoke, and she had to move it away, tuck it behind an ear. Hearing the coroner's report was bad enough, but she had seen the body too. And to think, that it had been after she the corpse had been cleaned.    
  
Antonio sat on the bench again, Audrey turning to watch him bury his head in his hands for a few seconds. She waited, her body tensed like a drawn bowstring, for him to start speaking and didn't take a seat herself. She stood in front of him elevated, like a judge might look down on accused persons. But Audrey already believed him guilty, and there was nothing he could say to change her mind. Not one with infallible and strict morals, this was just something she couldn't forgive.  
  
"I had no choice," he began, and despite her desire to spit back the load of bullshit that statement was, she kept quiet. Audrey wouldn't interrupt him, wouldn't say a word, wouldn't even move as he explained.  
  
"I agreed to go undercover as a Death Eater. My brother, he killed one of the death eaters, for Eliza's sake, but Gustav needed to be appeased," Tony spoke, uncaring if she understood the people he spoke about or not. She was aware enough to understand, but still she didn't move.  
  
"All Death Eaters have to torture someone as a right of passage...they found Emily," Tony looked up, expecting Audrey to flinch or recoil but she did neither, "and I had no choice. If I hadn't...my brother, Eliza, they would have paid the price."  
  
"So instead," Audrey finally spoke, her eyes beginning to swim with tears, "you have her pay it." She exhaled, the breath leaving her body in shudders. Her control was giving away. She brought a hand up to her mouth, her nails chewed down. Normally she wore acrylic, did them herself, but lately couldn't bring herself to care.  
  
"How could you?" She questioned, her teeth gritting with a noise that jarred her ear, "You had no right-"  
  
"No, I didn't," Tony agreed, swallowing, "I had no right, but I did it anyways and I didn't care."  
  
That made Audrey's eyebrows skyrocket, her eyes narrowing she half-shouted, "you what?!" This time when she exhaled, her magic burst through. Tony went flying through the wooden bench, wood exploding and flying in splinters as he crashed into the icy ground. Audrey gasped and stepped over the destroyed bench and walked to stand above Tony as he moved to stand, wincing the whole time.  
  
"You failed to show her respect when she was alive, you -will- respect her now, so help me God," she snapped, ignoring the looks of the people around.  
  
Tony stood, more wary than before, his eyes narrowing, "I'm sorry, I am, but-"  
  
"But?" She repeated, silently urging him to choose his words cautiously before the next thing that exploded and splintered was his ribcage.  
  
"But, I had to. She was my friend, but she was one person." Audrey forced herself to stop shaking, but didn't manage to keep her head from shaking side to side in vehement rejection of his explanation.  
  
"That one person is worth a million of you and your brother both! And you killed her! Are you even sorry?! Do you even take it back?!" She started off yelling at him, but by the end she was gasping it out, her chest heaving, the air electric around her.  
  
"I am so sorry, I am," he spoke softly, his eyes as watery as hers, "I'm sorry I drank from her, I'm sorry I snapped her neck, I regret having to do it...but I would do it again."  
  
That was enough, she didn't want to listen to him anymore. With that train of thought, his breath left his body with a sharp gasp and was unable to enter. His eyes widened and in a panic, he brought his hands to his throat, opening and closing his mouth like a guppy out of water, beginning to go as blue as the water the fish swam in.  
  
Her tears were frozen on her cheeks as she watched him, eyes narrowing in concentration, her grief and anger giving her magic more vigor than usual. He was on his knees again, unable to keep himself standing upright, struggling for breath she wouldn't allow to enter his lungs. Her own lungs expanded and compressed rapidly, a rush traveling through her veins the same way it had the first time she had done this to her mother when she was only five years old.  
  
Then Tony looked back up at her, and she saw it. There was no fear there, like she had been expecting (like she had wanted), just a resigned acceptance. He wanted to die, though she wasn't sure he was consciously aware of it. The surprise was enough to release the spell halfway, and an actual decision lifted the magic completely. They both took in gasps of breath, the cold air sharp and painful against the lungs.  
  
Tony looked up at her as new tears traveled down her face, and he suddenly stood too fast to be human and stepped towards Audrey, his own hand closing around Audrey's throat.  
  
"You threaten me again," he began to growl but pulled back with a hiss as his hand burned, the entire palm of his hand red and he held it to his chest. Moving out of shock, Audrey stepped forward again.  
  
"I might not be able to prove that you did this, and even if I did, I might not be able to find anyone to actually give enough of a shit to follow this through, but I'll tell you what I can do. I can crush your windpipe, set your skin on fire, drive a pencil clean through your skull." She exhaled and took another step, their chests almost touching as she continued in a quieter hiss.  
  
"I can pull your spine out of your throat, turn your blood into acid, and set crows to peck your eyes out of your head. You come after me or my family, I'll give you something to really cry about." Just to show she was unafraid, she turned her back and started walking away.  
  
The problem was, she was afraid. Her heart pumped loud enough in her ears, her breathing was erratic. So she walked away, walked away quick enough to be out of there before he noticed that she was afraid and before he noticed that she couldn't kill him. That she had tried, had almost succeeded, but couldn't go through with it at the end. The only thing that kept her safe was if people believed she would make good on her threats.  
  
She walked past families and children, uncaring, wiping at her eyes and kept walking until she was out of the park, then she walked some more. Breathing in and breathing out, a hand covered her mouth every time a sob threatened to escape, and it did several times. Audrey walked until her feet protested, utterly forgetting her ability to apparate, and then continued walking until she had added two new blisters to the soles of her feet.  
  
She stopped and realized she was outside her house. Nora ran outside when she saw her, throwing herself at her feet and hugging her. Audrey immediately picked her up and squeezed her right, her eyes shutting.  
  
"Audrey, what's wrong?" Nora asked as she pulled back. Audrey sniffed and wiped her tears one final time before she managed a smile and shook her head.  
  
"Nothing, nothing's wrong, love, come on let's go inside, I'm so hungry."  
  
"That's no reason to cry," Nora said, making Audrey smile and chuckle. After she got inside, she made sure to add three new spells to the house's security. Not even Santa was getting through the chimney tonight.  
  
Merry Christmas to all.


	25. [Christmas Day]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> {A Very D'Grey Christmas Day}

He awoke early, he always woke up early on Christmas Day, no matter how late he had stayed up partying up the Christmas Eve, or how drunk he had gotten.  
  
He had drank, true, in celebration, making everybody sgroppino, an Italian cocktail usually reserved for summer but hey, you just didn't say no to it, but he hadn't gotten drunk. First time in the past few Christmases actually, given that he had spent them alone. A couple with some friends but never the actual Christmas Day, because Tony didn't want to impose.  
  
Now he was home, and boy was it difficult to admit this place as home but it was the closest he had to it, and celebrating Christmas with his brother and Stefanie, who was currently half on top of him, curled on his chest. This wasn't her first Christmas without her older brother, but it was the first one without her younger, so he wanted to make it as happy as he could too.  
  
He kissed her bare shoulder once, then twice, then grinned and starting bouncing on the bed, as much as he could laying down.  
  
"Wake up, wake up, wake up! Merry Christmaaaaaaas!"  
  
So much for attempting to wake up before him and kiss him first. (Stef knew Daniella was still in his dog house for telling her he wanted to wake that way, but in her defense, Stefanie had been saying she was curious about it and all Dani had said was that she might have the opportunity! And there was wine involved. So there was that.)  
  
Of course, she had been neglecting that night to think on the fact that she was a vampire, and had probably only fallen asleep two hours before Tony was snuggling into her back, kissing the crook of her neck and shoulder. There was that too. She was grateful he woke her that way; it put from her mind even for a brief second that she was waking on Christmas, and there was no Lebkuchengewurz cookies, or Stollen bread baking downstairs. Marcel wasn't going to come jump on her. Her un-beating heart might have found a way to skip at the reminder, and instead she just lets her eyes shut a little tighter, curling back herself into Tony's warmth and offering him an incoherent murmur. God, he was warm.  
  
(And he had made her Italian cocktails, and there was likely still cinnamon sugar on the bed from their own cookies. There was that too.)  
  
Only he pulled away, to bounce and she blinks hazily, one-eyed as she searched out the clock in the room. Noting the darkness from shades still drawn and the simple fact that even one-eyed she was seeing perfectly clearly, so there couldn't be sunlight in the room blinding her, she groans incoherently again. Then rolls over, hands landing on his chest as she lays on top of him, trying to use her weight to stop him bouncing.  
  
(Or maybe she just wanted to bounce too.)  
  
"Froe wynachten, joyeux noel, and merry christmas to you too, hon. Is it actually Christmas, or is it just Christmas in another time zone and you didn't want to wait any more?"  
  
Then she kisses his chest, happy to breathe in his warmth and scent.  
  
He scoffed, "What are you talking about? It's already-" he paused, stretching out his arm and placing an arm around her waist so as not dislodge her as he moved to pick up his watch and check the time, "-4:45! We're late!"  
  
He smirked and then used his arm around her waist to help flip them, grinning wide before kissing her once.  
  
"Up, up!" And he jumped up to show his point, and bounced on the bed before jumping off it.  
  
Oh, she was wrong again. She'd slept one hour and forty-five minutes. How dare she not see that made all the differen-"Ah!" Stefanie exclaims as they suddenly flip. Her hair sprawls behind her, legs straddling from force of habit (she didn't want him to land in an uncomfortable place, see). Laughing as he sprang up (even as she bemoans the loss of his arm around her waist), she cocks her head, enjoying looking up at him. It didn't last near long enough, and her groan tells him that.  
  
"Four am." Her incredulous, warm amusement sounded prim, like she accompanies them with the air of a 'mature' princess. "In other words," She adds, scooting back in the bed and sliding his warm sheets up around her, "your age. Or fine, round up, you're five. I'll be generous."  
  
The last was a murmur into his sheets, now burrowing her nose into his pillow under the cloud of silk, still lost in his heady scent.  
  
He chuckled, used to being called 5, or 9, or 12, ages that were clearly pre-pubescent and totally untrue at all. So what if he was a little kid at heart? Women found that adorable. Women cuddled the adorable. But Tony, he heard the protests in his mind, but women don't want to fuck adorable. You're right, unnamed voice! Now, if he wanted to fuck, all he had to do was turn on the sexy. He was sooooo changeable.  
  
Putting on his hooded sweatshirt and his pajama pants, he went over to Stef on the bed and tickled the sole of her right foot, before tugging it.  
  
"Stef come oooooooon!"  
  
Her foot disappears into the bed-sheet with a whip, only to be yanked right back out. Goddamn his equal strength sometimes, she swore. (Loudly, but in German, so he would only understand the gist). Twisting, landing gracefully on her feet and holding his pillow over her chest with one hand, the other taking his shoulder and flipping their positions again. Only this time he was sitting, she was standing between his knees, bracing them open and flicking his lip with her thumb.  
  
"Tickle me again," she warns playfully, "and I'll have no choice but to retaliate in kind."  
  
It was surprising that their constant flipping didn't have him busy. On the contrary, he was having fun. He only smirked up at Stef's threat to tickle him back, thinking that was going to happen soon because one, he wasn't one to back away from a challenge and two, he really just couldn't help himself.  
  
She leans in, kissing him once, only to tilt her head back as she listens outside his room. Laughing under her breath, she adds, "And Daniella's giving us ten seconds to get to the door, so--"  
  
"Damn, she beat me to it."  
  
Effortlessly pulling Tony back up as quickly as he'd yanked her, she speeds across the room, grabbing her dressing gown on the way and tying it around her waist. His pillow even makes it back to the bed. Tony grinned as he was yanked up, still not entirely used to the fact that he actually moved when she pulled but took it in stride. He didn't think anyone besides him would wake up this early on Christmas in this house. Or had she and Olivier not gone to sleep? He didn't want to know.  
  
Then she opens the door to a grasping, manicured hand. Smiling sweetly at Daniella, she asks, "You didn't really expect to be able to sneak up on us, did you?"  
  
"Nope!" Dani was taking it in stride, taking Tony's wrist instead of the door handle and bouncing herself. "Merry christmas!" Hair an ebony mess and neck still pink (goddamn), she runs one hand over it and tightens her own violet robe over a camisole as dark as her hair, and pajama bottoms that had reindeer on them.  
  
(And Stef was just going to pretend, stubborn to the last, she couldn't smell the fresh-blood in her friend, yes she would.)  
  
"No?" Stefanie asked, twisting fingers around the gold chain to tug her cross back into view. "Then why is Olivier around the corner?"  
  
A hand waves, and then Olivier appears too, leaning back against the wall with a light smirk on his face.  
  
"Just because you knew we're coming doesn't usually have much input on your exhibitionist streaks."  
  
Stefanie tucks her index finger between her teeth and smirks. Guilty as charged.  
  
Pulling the hood, Tony headed over to the door as well and grinned openly at seeing Daniella there in her own gown and reindeer pants. Cute. And it would match his present for her! Not the reindeers though.  
  
"Buon Natale!" He repeated her merry christmas in his Italian, hugging her tight (but not bone-crunching tight) and then grinned at his brother, repeating, "Buon Natale, fratello."  
  
Greetings all done with? Good.  
  
"Okay, let's go! Come on! Don't dwaddle!" He bounced on his toes before smirking over at Stefanie.  
  
"Race you!" And he took off.  
  
"Buon Natalie, fratello," Olivier responds overtop Stefanie's not-subtle mutter of 'oh sure, she gets it in Italian'. Actually, the Italian was likely for his benefit, as it was what they said to each other (sometimes followed by 'hug me brotha!' after Tony had him marathon Drake & Josh) when they saw each other at Christmas as kids. He would point that out, but Stef had clearly meant it in a 'sexy romantic' context, and well, Olivier just wasn't going to invite that commentary. (Daniella was on a roll already.)  
  
It didn't surprise him at all either, that Stefanie had been in Tony's bed with him (unless they hadn't gone to sleep either, or actually, that wouldn't surprise him either, he just didn't want to think about it).  
  
And then Tony took off - Stefanie giving herself a moment to make a very impressive "how dare he not count off" face before taking off herself. Daniella's curls blew back into place with their speed.  
  
"Oh unfair." Daniella's hand went to her hips.  
  
Deciding that wouldn't do, Olivier slipped into vamp-speed himself, wrapping his arms around Dani's waist and burying his nose in her neck, fingers tucking her curls back behind her ears. She didn't even startle, he notes impressed and with some bemusement. Daniella just tilted her head back into him, grasping his hand at her waist.  
  
"You wouldn't happen to know if Harper got me a potion to be as fast as you three for Christmas, would you?"  
  
Olivier just laughs, then scoops her up. There was a twinkle in her gaze that told him that was what she wanted him to do, her arms naturally slipping around his neck before he took off too.  
  
Stopping abruptly at the top of their grand living-room's few steps, sheer delight crosses his lips at the image: a thirteen-foot tree dressed in multi-colored lights, gold and silver garland, candy-canes (yes Tony, he did see where they were missing a few, don't think he hadn't noticed that before) and shiny ornaments stood in the center, proud on a red carpet. Rimmed by a train that has smoke blowing off the coal (real, of course) and soldiers walking back and forth to guard the piled presents (one of whose fur-hats was askew; he wondered if that was Tony or Stefanie), it wasn't the largest tree he'd ever seen in this foyer...but it was easily the warmest one. A few of the ornaments added this year last night had only ever been on Nonna's fir tree before; she sent them ahead (even though she insisted they still come for Christmas dinner in Roma) so that they might have actual 'home' for once.  
  
Daniella hops off, snapping her fingers to start the choral, instrumental concertos off of the record machine. Then she leans over the back of the plush couch, looking at the two of them, sprawled together on the floor.  
  
"Who won?"  
  
Behind her, Olivier adds brightly, his own finger-snap lighting the fireplace, "And only three broken ornaments! I'm impressed."  
  
"And I want my peppermint coffee." Stefanie muttered,into Tony's skin.  
  
No Christmas trees were harmed in the making of this race. He laid out on the ground in chuckles after the race, wondering if they were going to end up tumbling and wrestling every time they did so. Admittedly, with the speed they were traveling at, the mere gust, and fine he had elbowed a little ornament as he had stopped, he was surprised more things weren't broken. His brother, once he was downstairs as well with Dani, commented the same.  
  
He chuckled again as Dani asked and he answered simply, "Tie," before smirking, taking a brief time catching his breath and smiling at Stefanie's request.  
  
"You'll want to drink it from one of your presents then," sitting up and going over to the tree, grinning at the little soldiers before standing with his feet together and his hands behind his back.  
  
"Company, atten-TION!-" The little soldiers came to a halt and then turned to face him.  
  
"Present ARMS!" Their little plastic rifles were raised in salute.  
  
"Order ARMS!" The plastic rifles were back at their sides, like the good little toy soldiers they were. That was a good movie too, Small Soldiers. The monsters were actually the good guys and the army men the monsters, and it was all very enlightening yadda yadda sure, but the toys came to life!  
  
"Left, FACE!" And so they turned 90 degrees to the left, still until Tony ordered, "Forward, march!" They marched forward, away from the tree, leaving the presents open for them to get to. Sure, there were easier ways to get to them but this one was much more fun.  
  
Once they were far enough he ordered, "Company, HALT!" They stopped as one perfect synchronized unit and then he let them go. "Rest, lovely little soldiers," he stopped standing so straight too, that was exhausting, "ah, presents!"  
  
He picked up a little blue bag decorated in snowflakes and then walked back over to Stefanie with a little grin and handed it to her. Tony was not a good wrapper, so he didn't try. Presents were put in a bag and then were hidden with tissue paper. This particular gift was a coffee mug but in the shape of a snowman with a little black top hat. Take off the top hat and voila! The mouth of the mug. The handle was supposed to be one of the arms while the other arm was holding a red and green candy-cane cane that matched his candy cane scarf. This was one classy snowman okay?  
  
"Buon Natale," he made sure to whisper teasingly in her ear after having heard her little complain two minutes before, smirking just a bit, really he was grinning.  
  
Daniella's mouth was getting wider and wider with her smirk watching the presents soldier march. Around her, Olivier was directing his index finger to light candles, turn the music down, and fetch and open a festive garbage bag, she saw, hanging just out of sight a good ten feet away. When she cocks her eyebrow at him, he just says innocently, "Wrapping paper basketball."  
  
And she'd thought she was the only one who worked on keeping things clean while they were opened. To hear the triplets tell it she definitely was 'ridiculous' about that, except what she thought was ridiculous was finding confetti under her sheets for two weeks a--  
  
No, that was funny. It was just the wrapping paper everywhere and no one helping her clean it up that wasn't. Winking back at Olivier, she thanks the toy soldier that hands her one of Tony's paper bags, putting it on top of her lap as she puts her-self- on Oli's lap.  
  
"Let me guess," he was whispering in her ear, "you're, my present?"  
  
To which she responds cheeky, "You had me already you know."  
  
"I can't go back for seconds?"  
  
Oh that Olivier sass was going to be the death of... him, one of these days, Dani's look swears as she scoots over on the couch.  
  
Stefanie shivers hearing the sweet tickle of his hiss, and narrows her eyes at him playfully as she takes the present. And tiredly, because she'd already half had to redress after their impromptu wrestling, and considering the lack of sleep  
  
Oh, she was just kidding. She was too excited to feel that yet. Happily perching on the arm of Tony's chair as she drew the mug out, she tried to fake a gasp, but was too busy being delighted. Especially when the mug was taken right back out of her hands by one of the soldiers (this to Oli's finger point), taken off, and poured her coffee before bringing it back.  
  
"...Okay, can I ask why we don't have these all the time?" Stef asks brightly, not accepting it until she'd leaned in to kiss Tony once (that worked as 'grazie', didn't it?), handing him his first present as well. This box, meticulously wrapped by hand and with a bright pink bow (because why not?) contained a time-lord's screwdriver (eleventh) that also worked as a pen and laser pointer.  
  
+.  
  
"Because then they wouldn't be special, obviously," he remarks, grin wide as he sees a similar smile on her lips at her first present. Tony was a multi-present kind of giver. One small gift, one gag gift, and then a moderately expensive one. The mug was the small gift, obviously. But Dani currently had his gag gift for her, which was a leather spiky collar and chain. Haha, he had to repress laughter already. The grin turned into a smirk briefly as she kissed him as a thank you and then turned to his own present. She tied a bow! Who ties a bow anymore when you could stick it on? He almost felt bad for tearing off the wrap. Almost.   
  
He opened the box and then grinned immediately as he saw The Doctor's sonic screwdriver. He laughed once and then kissed her cheek loudly before taking it out and clicking the buttons as he played with it. Pen, hello new favorite pen!, and laser pointer! And it made the noise!   
  
"This is perfect!" He turned the screwdriver and pointed it at Oli, making as if he was scanning and then decreed, "That's what I thought! 50% sass, 50% dick."  
  
+.  
  
"Oi, hey--!" Olivier's hand leaped to his eyes, covering quickly as if his brother would point it there. Or as if( as Dani whispers in his ear, apparently forgetting the superb hearing of vampires) a lightbulb could blind him anyways.  
  
Stefanie pretends not to hear it anyway, lifting the top hat to take a sip. Then Olivier pauses, apparently weighing the scans results (and ignoring the warm whisper if minty-smoke Stef blows against Tony's ear a she enjoys the coffee). Quips easily, "It gives you results? What, has Mary Poppins gone modern? Tape measure not good enough?"  
  
"And there's the sass," Daniella chuckles, exchanging the box she held for Tony's instead. She couldn't remember if she'd given him the photo album (with a picture of him and Madame Sir Cuddles on the cover, though there were photos Oli gave her of them the one in the kilts was too good to ignore Stef had given her two of them in Roma, the one they took out an evening together, and space for more of course), or the bejeweled 'Thank yer, thank yer very much," T-shirt, but when she pulls out his leather whip she prayed for the latter first.  
  
Breaking in to laughter (and thoroughly distracting Olivier from a book from Bri seeing the crop in her hand), Dani has to take a second to actually breathe before she can respond.  
  
"Ooh, Stef? I think you might be slacking as Mistress--"  
  
Or maybe she had been slacking, until seeing the gift makes Stefanie promptly seize Tony's ear and squeeze. With the other hand, she tickles under his elbow.  
  
"Are you--" Yup, she was. Low blow, Stef. And very easy way to wind up--  
  
Well, likely, underneath his brother with her hands cuffed overhead and as that was an image he truly does not want to be born into reality, Olivier cuts his sentence short. Leaning back to pull his first gift for Tony off the stack (he'd never been able not to spoil and goddammit but he has his brother there, he was giving him everything he could get his hands on), he tosses it to his brother. This one was nothing special, a bottle of his favorite bourbon, but he tosses another bag on top of it too.  
  
"As per tradition," Oli says with a small smile, knowing it would give away the bag of chocolates.  
  
"Stef, about your jealousy--" Olivier starts, but Dani (still chuckling), promptly gets up.  
  
"-Her- jealousy?!" Daniella sits on the other arm besides Tony, pointing at Olivier with the crop. "Let's not bring jealousy into this, Stefan."  
  
"Ouch." His hand lands over his heart, smirking. "That's just cold, Dani, this early in the morning."  
  
Daniella winks at him, even as she was putting on the silver hoop earrings he'd already given her in bed. They had diamond and sapphire studs, and only were proving to her right now how goddamn much money the brothers had.  
  
+.  
  
"If we want to get technical, Doctor Who aired before the Mary Poppins movie," he pointed with his screwdriver at his brother, nodding importantly. He put the screwdriver immediately in the pockets of the hoodie, now wishing he an inside jacket pocket instead so he could store it there but it would do for now. He was about to ask Stef if it came with squareness gun when Dani opened her gift and he grinned. Well, he grinned until Stef pulled his ear and tickled his elbow and he almost bolted out of his seat with a yelp and a chortle combined.   
  
"Oy-ehhhhh-hey!" He slapped her hands away, making sure that coffee wasn't about to get spilled on both their laps and then fake-glared at her. Uncool! "She's a fuh-reeeek! It was either this or a ball gag, which I heavily contemplated," he turned to Dani briefly for this part of the explanation, "as it would have given a whole new definition to the term gag gift but I figured the whole leather collar and whip combo was plenty." He turned back to Stef.   
  
"Stop pouting, have your other gift," he held his hand out and a toy soldier brought it over to him and he handed it to Stefanie. The gag gift was a calendar, starring him in ridiculous and eccentric poses.   
  
With the help of photoshop he trembled in his boots for January, shot arrows as a Cupid in February, overgrown diaper and wings included, dressed up as Caesar for March (half Julius Caesar/half Caesar Black, and the people betraying him were his characters instead with a caption reading 'et tu, Bruno?' which was the main character from his first boom), danced in rain puddles in April, skipped through a field of flowers in May, spiked a volleyball at the beach for June, did a keg stand in July, is recovering from a hangover in August, is in a business suit and heading to work in September, dressed up as Jon Snow and trick or treating with other kids (Angie and Carina helped) during October, jumped in a pile of dry leaves in November, and sat on Santa's lap during December.   
  
Tony was thinking of selling them.   
  
Taking his own gift, he catches it, grinning as the sound and the swish of the liquid betrays what it was already.   
  
"Oh Oli you shouldn't have!" He takes the bottle out of the bag and grinning points out, "You know technically it is 5 o'clock somewhere. Here, it's 5 o'clock here, the phrasing never specifies which 5 o clock!" It was a tease though, he put the bottle back in the bag and the bag off to the side before grinning at the chocolates. "Lindoor!" He quickly goes to his favorite dark chocolate, unwrapping the wrapper and popping the whole chocolate truffle in his mouth, not chewing it once, instead letting it melt on his tongue like he always did. He also handed Olivier his first present, a crown. Yes, Tony had turned the metaphorical into the literal. He had gotten his brother a crown, but not just any crown oh no! Robb Stark's crown! Because if he was Jon Snow, Oli obviously had to be Robb, the King in the North (minus the Red Wedding; the Red Wedding does not exist).  
  
+.  
  
"I'm not sure five am is the same," Stefanie was saying primly, happily having swooped down and stolen his chair when he leaped away from her. "You know, unless you were up all night--"  
  
"All right, all right." Olivier interrupts immediately, waving off everything, nodding to the toy soldier delivery service.  
  
"Hypocrite." Daniella mutters under her breath, making him smirk as he goes to unwrap. It didn't change his mind. Yes, in this, he was fine with a double standard. (Not that he'd been flaunting their extra-curriculars, Stefanie had, but he digressed on technicalities. Olivier couldn't help it anymore okay. His brain just did it!)  
  
"And merci, cheri." Dani leans in to kiss Tony's cheek, already thinking of the look on Noah's face if she conveniently 'left them out.' Priceless. Not that he'd be surprised, no, just irritated.  
  
Stef slid back in the chair, pouring the coffee Tony spilled back into her mug. Frosty caught all of it in his magic top hat to her delight.  
  
"Best mug ever." She says idly, appeasing Tony's glare with a sweet smile. Then she put her bow on the glass top hat. After all, she had just proved he was more vulnerable to a few wiggles of her fingertips than any fang, and he might not find it adorable, but she did. It was just...preciously human.  
  
Ooh, okay, moving on quickly--after another sip, she pulls out the calendar and loses herself to laughter. Okay, and as Cupid?  
  
"That's ironic." Stef chuckles, as Daniella steals it so she and Olivier could look through it too. "If you scan one of your other presents with that screwdriver, there's a picture of me for you too. Not!, the wood box, obviously."  
  
That one had his actual gift, though she was happy to see the tradition of gag and small gifts wasn't just her family. Inside the wood box though was an authentic obsidian candle, that could only be lit in conjunction with a special spell. She was going to enjoy watching him try too, but of course if he did get it, the flame would cast rainbow colored shadows.  
  
"Obviously, it doesn't do wood." Olivier says proudly, setting the crown atop his head at once. Daniella tweaks his ear, bemused, as if to say 'he's learning so fast.'  
  
"Is tha--that's a crown of bronze and iron!" Stef adds, swiveling as she hugs the new cashmere sweater from Daniella and Tony's calendar to her chest. The phrase stirs in Olivier's memory.  
  
"You got me the crown of the King in the North?"  
  
"Huh." Dani considers. "I could probably work as Talisa Maegyr. Exotic beauty, righteous..."  
  
"His ultimate downfall?" Stefanie teases, even though she was minutely annoyed Daniella hadn't said Jeyne. But then, she'd always been a book purist.  
  
(Except for Robb/Dacey fanfic because they were obviously meant to be.)  
  
+.  
  
He frowned as his seat was taken and then resorted to sitting on the arm of the chair himself. He'd get Stefanie back for it later, his tiny glare promised it. The glare couldn't stay too long on his face though, especially as he heard the compliment to his mug (no, not his face this time), and declared himself appeased. He took the time to stop another chocolate in his mouth and grabbed Dani's first present, a sparkly t-shirt he immediately had to try.   
  
Pulling the hooded sweatshirt off, he immediately pulled on the bejeweled shirt, standing up and then doing the signature Elvis dance move while singing 'a hunka hunka burning love' and then stroke a pose! Stroke? Striked? Struck! Struck. "I love it! I'll never take it off," he teased as he went back to the arm and watched Stefanie open, take out of the bag, her gag gift. Him! Kind of.   
  
He grinned widely as she laughed, finding his mission complete. "Oh?" He smirked and then grab the sonic screwdriver out the pocket of his sweatshirt to scan the presents, but once he saw the wooden box he really couldn't resist himself, it was right there in his reach.   
  
He grabbed it, it had a pink bow tied about it but that was it. The box was really fine, polished and intricately carved. There was something so familiar about this box somehow. "A glass candle!" He picked it up, long and twisted but not with sharp edges thank God, that would have hurt (and still not as tall as the ones in the book but that's fine!).   
  
"What do the British say- wicked?" He asked Dani quickly before declaring, "Wicked!" He kissed Stef again and held it in his hands, contemplating on how he could get it to light. He looked up again as the fuss to the crown started up and then grinned.   
  
"What? You wanted the Lannister crown?" Olivier could actually be more Lannister than Stark actually, but no because he was Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, so Robb Stark's crown it was. "A crown should never sit easy on a king's head," he quoted, before he turned to Daniella appalled, looking at her as if she had just kicked a puppy. "We don't talk about Talisa in this house." He shook his head and then looked to try and find another gift but he turned back again.   
  
"I mean she makes no sense okay?! And they ruined her potential- I was rooting for spy Talisa except not except yes but- why travel to a strange land to help people in a war you're not a part of instead of trying to help with the slaves in Volantis because she obviously hated it once she realized oh hey slaves are people too, she runs away to cut off legs in Westeros- she doesn't make sense!" He exhaled through his nose, and then inhaled again before commenting.   
  
"We don't talk about Talisa in this house," he repeated and then leaned forward to grab her gift, that amethyst ring he had promised her and then plopped the small bag on her lap.   
  
"Shh, no, it's Christmas, fight me on it tomorrow, have your gift. And Stef's is...oh! Thank you private," he took it from the toy soldier and then passed it to Stef with a grin. He had gotten her a dragon egg.   
  
Settle down! It wasn't real. Well, it would eventually hatch with fire, and eventually would come out three miniature dragons no bigger than the palm of her hand. Three dragons off course because the dragon had three heads and she was Khaleesi.   
  
"Oh, here's your chocolates too," he tossed the bag to Olivier and then picked up another bag to have the soldier deliver it to Oli, given that it delicate.   
  
The gag gift was a mirror, (ahem like the one in Beauty and The Beast sue him!), but the mirror talked. In sass. It spoke Olivier's language. They would have sass-offs that would be remembered for centuries.  
  
+.  
  
"Wow, Tony, you sound really pretty passionate about that." Olivier said, casual as he conducts the last few strains of a choral 'joy to the world.' The song that came on next, the German silent nacht, makes Stefanie soften too much apparently to return immediately to the subject. Had Tony talked about that before? Huh. Probably.  
  
Look, there were a lot of ASOIAF rants from his brother, he couldn't be expected to remember every single one of them. Teasing smirk in place, Olivier reached for a chocolate. Placing it on Daniella's tongue (half because it gave him an excuse to touch her lips, half before she could respond in kind on the fact his brother had just insinuated he would prefer she be spying on him), he pockets the wrapper in his maroon dressing gown.  
  
"Wicked." Daniella confirms, as Stefanie lingers in kissing Tony back, a graceful hand coming up to cup his neck. When she pauses (remembering belatedly yeah, he needed to breathe), she only says, "Any ideas how to light it, suesser?"  
  
Two-ear-splitting whistles of approval force him to cease happily (pretending to) ignore Tonio's Elvis rendition. After side-eying both girls (amused as Stefanie seems to rub her ear in annoyance--ha, see, she forgot how sensitive she was), he opens the mirror.  
  
Promptly holding it up after he saw the intricately carved rose on the white-silver back, he declares proudly, "Show me the beast!"  
  
"Can't I do something else? I get that request five times a day." A disembodied voice answered him, practical, somehow a mix between Siri and his dear brother. Stefanie and Tony were high-fiving as he shook his head, amused in spite of himself.  
  
"Oh I see how it is."  
  
"Mhmm-- oh!" Daniella breaks off his response to the mirror as she pulls out an amethyst ring on a silver band. This time she promptly seizes Tony's cheeks and kisses him square on in a flash.  
  
"It's perfect!" Daniella slides it on her ring finger while Stefanie was clearing her throat. Of course at this moment, Stef caused a slight diversion by pulling out a golden dragon egg.  
  
Both Daniella and Olivier looked eyes-wide, but Stefanie just beamed.  
  
"Is that-"  
  
"Khaleesi's dragon egg!"  
  
"Seven hells." Olivier mutters under his breath and this time, it has squat to do with Stefanie kissing his brother enthusiastically.  
  
+.  
  
"Oh wait wait," he picks up his screwdriver again and scans Olivier before declaring,"yep! It's changed, 75% dick." He smirked and then put the screwdriver back on the end table, and looks up to play with the candle after kissing Stefanie, though he also murmured grazie against her lips and then contemplated.   
  
"With my burning eternal flame," he teased and then winked before placing the candle back in the box, knowing he was going to spend the rest of the day trying to light it obsessively. He placed the box on the table next to his screwdriver, pleased and happy. Turning back, he waited with smug amusement for the mirror to answer back and snickered, high-fiving Stef and wiggling his eyebrows. Oh! Someone liked their gift! Tony grinned as she pulled away. Royal purple looked good on her, perfect combination!   
  
"Told you I'd get it, wifey," he teased with an exaggerated wink before turning back to Stef, ready for her reaction. This was Tony's favorite part of gift exchanging: the reactions. It's why he preferred to have people open his gifts in front of him but granted, it would be difficult this year. He made promise Claude and Eliza to wait for him though. And Stefanie reacted even better than he expected!   
  
He laughed once, and laughed harder at Olivier and Dani's faces which were so much different from Stefanie's awed beamy expression. "It's-," but before he could explain that it wasn't technically a real dragon egg, he was pulled in for a kiss of gratitude that completely overshadowed the previous ones. He cupped her neck and kissed her back, pulling back only when he needed air and then after that still leaned forward to give her a quick peck, small smirk on his face. "It hatches, yes, but it's not a 'real' dragon as in its not gonna grow the size of the house but...oh don't make me give it away!”  
  
+.  
  
Olivier gestures at himself as the word 'wifey' pops up, then up in the air. Far from the cliche 'hey what about me?' he asked instead a bright, sassy 'hey, I think I deserve credit for my complete lack of jealousy here.' Only he doesn't say it aloud, because drawing attention to it would nullify his point. And, you know, ask for the mirror to mock him.  
  
Daniella was wiggling her eyebrows at him as she curtsied to one of the toy soldiers and accepted a dance. The one-two-three, one-two-three turned into one-two-three-dash, where she stole another present for Olivier under the tree and bounced back, handing it to him, even as he was stuck on asking the recently surfaced Tony why on earth (or in Westeros) he had brought a dragon egg into this house.  
  
"Nope, don't give it away." Stefanie says, settling back in Tony's lap, not even entirely sure how she had gotten there now.  
  
"You're going to stop him from talking?" Daniella asked with a knowing glint in her eye as Olivier starts unwrapping her present.  
  
"Wai-" He starts, but oh too late, Stefanie had started snogging him again. With a heady sigh, he has another piece of chocolate for comfort before opening the box. He instantly beams.  
  
"Daniella."  
  
"Yes, Olivier." She echoes, sweet.  
  
"You didn't."  
  
"Yes I did." She leans over and kisses his cheek too, still admiring the ring on her finger. Inside the box were a boxed-set of the vampire diaries first five seasons, signed by  
  
"Daniel Gilles actually "  
  
"Has a meeting with you first week in January. Well, a party invitation, but-"  
  
And now Oli was kissing her--yanked her into his lap, finger raised as he takes a breath to add, "Don't think I've forgotten about the possibility of the house burning down you know."  
  
Also, the gift was ironic, and he suspects Dani had gotten the idea from him, given the backstage passes for JT sitting in the box nearby the one-unit-of-Tony-and-Stef.  
  
+.  
  
Oh how had he gotten back in his chair and how had Stefanie gotten back on his lap? Huh, he would have to attempt to run an instant replay....nope, still didn't know, but he found this position much more comfortable. Tony liked being on the bottom, it came with his need to be emotionally smothered. See, why did he need to go see a therapist when he already knew everything about himself? Save himself a couple of bucks.   
  
He started thinking of ways to let his brother know that the manor wasn't in danger of being burned down (by the dragons, because Tony made no promises), without actually spoiling the surprise but his lips were pretty quickly claimed by Stefanie again.   
  
He could do without breath for a little while, he could manage, especially when he could taste the traces of peppermint from her coffee on her tongue but then had to pull back as he heard. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Daniel Gillies?!," his mouth dropped open, momentarily jealous. Who didn't love that handsome stud? "And all I got," he reached forward and unwrapped Dani's present with a quick tear and then realized what it was and had to suppress his huge grin to instead pretend to look affronted, "was a homemade photo album entitled Pics Or It Didn't Happen?" His tiny glare turned into a smirk which turned into a huge grin.   
  
He blew her a kiss. "Grazie, tesoro." He turned to the tree, an arm around Stef's waist and then pointed at a bad by the little railroad station and sent a soldier to retrieve it and send it over to Olivier.   
  
The problem with Olivier it was that he was a man who if he didn't have everything, he could easily get anything. It was hard to give him gifts, but Tony always managed. This was their first Christmas together since he left here the second time so it had to be good! The pressure was on! Okay now he was doubting his gift.   
  
See, Tony wrote him a play. Not just any play! A comedic satire of his 'reign as king'. Except in the play he really was king, King Olironni of Sassinovia. He fought monsters, vanquished evil, with actual caterpillar for eyebrows. His people loved him (there was a particular line Tony liked where King Olironni was among his subjects as they bowed and he commented 'there's nothing I love more than people on their knees'), because he gave them food, drink, and magical mushrooms acquired from the mystical land Scitocran beyond the Forest of Doom (it's also how he kept his subjects loyal, shhhhh).   
  
The plot followed King Olironni on his quest to collect all the mirrors in the world so he could create his mirror palace. Along the way he met characters Empress Freaka, who would not part with her mirrors for just any old King, Princess Yummy, who had lived in a tower for 18 years but had managed to get out by attracting a dragon with her music and mounting it out of there, the Huntsmen who killed monsters and were the few who could navigate through the Forest of Doom safely, the Mountain Tribes of Duran Duran and Leech who were sworn mortal enemies, a wise woman who took many forms throughout the play, hag, child, badger, and maiden who tried to stop King Olironni from this foolish quest and called him Hyena Mouth, and a man-eating mermaid by the name of Liz Ea.   
  
Tony was the unnamed narrator.   
  
His brother really needed to laugh, ergo, his fabulous present! A play all about him, that poked a little fun but as if that was a bad thing! Yeah, back to being nervous about it.  
  
+.  
  
Stefanie blinks as her mouth is deserted, but when she hears the repeated reason why leap from Tony's mouth instead she can only laugh. Ooh, see, so that's how it was. Pushing on his shoulder teasingly, she leans back to reach for the Frosty mug, decidedly settling in.  
  
"Daniel Gilles?"  
  
"Si, si." Daniella sounded oh-so-proud as she sits back on the couch, feet in Olivier's lap. "He was in town for a film, I pulled some strings with his press detail...okay Amalie pulled some strings, told me where he was and with who, I got the passes, may have," she coughs and adds suddenly in one breath, "knocked two security guards out," she finishes brighter, "but he was a good sport about it."  
  
Olivier was just laughing, flipping through the discs and muttering she was crazy. But, everyone was in the room.  
  
As Tony read out his album title, Stefanie just leaned in his ear and murmured, bare, "If it makes a difference, this is the one you should scan for a secret photo of me."  
  
The hiss was warm, but she just takes another sip of her coffee, playful and teasing. Any desire to leave Tony's lap had evaporated as she hears his quickening heartbeat; the anxiety warming his skin, wafting that cinnamon and bourbon scent of his over her nose was a narcotic to her.  
  
(Though she was curious why he was nervous.)  
  
When Olivier read the title of his hand bound book out, it becomes clear in an instant.  
  
"The Palace of Mirrors: How King Olironni Found True Happiness."  
  
Eyes widening, she swivels as Daniella perks up, smirking abruptly as she recalls the conversation where Tony promised her the amethyst on her ring finger. Today wasn't the first time she was being given the role of defeating Oli (but she shouldn't think about that).  
  
"You actually wrote it?"  
  
Olivier appears frozen in a wide-open oh-mouth, eyes crinkled in stunned amusement. Daniella never had that problem. Speechlessness was for those afraid of their thoughts. Or the embarrassed or something, but Olivier just looked like a guppy who couldn't decide for a hot second if he wanted to throw a pillow at his brother or embrace him.  
  
Sitting up straighter to start scanning the basic definition, Daniella was stalled when Olivier leaned his head back into the couch and just started laughing. A full-bursted, warm sound that echoes through the room making Stef and Dani join in almost from compunction to share his genuine happiness (oh look! the title was true after all!)  
  
"You're such a cazzo." Olivier says when he has to pause for breath, eyes still wide in fondness as he looks at his brother. He was amazed and at the same time--not. Tony had always been creative, and he'd always been...well, inspired. Though he'd had nothing like Olivier did when they were still kids--he'd always managed to out-do himself. Tony could take a cardboard box and make it Singapore.  
  
"And this is genius," he says in Italian, slipping in to it without noticing. "Let me guess, I stop handing out these magic mushrooms because of a little cricket Antony?"  
  
Only then he looks down seeing Daniella's skimming and rapidly shuts the book, oh-ohing.  
  
"Oh, hey! No spoilers!"  
  
Daniella pouts, but has to look up at Stef and Tony as she asks, "Fine, all I'm going to say is one guess who 'Princess Yummy' is."  
  
+.  
  
Knocked two guards out. Unbelievable. Well, no wonder Mr. Daniel Gillies agreed to it, he must have been afraid for his life! Daniella had that effect on some people. Not Tony, obviously not Tony, nope, nuh-uh, maybe sometimes after hearing about the dark magic ritual a little bit but he digressed. Perking up at the information that this was the present he needed to scan for Stefanie's picture, his eyebrows wiggled and he had to restrain himself from looking for it just now. He was too busy waiting for Olivier's reaction. They didn't even want to know how it was that he finished on time (time to give Devin the time-turner back, and time to finally have normal 24 hour days again!) and he would never tell them. Writing a play was hard! But acted out (which they totally had to do one day, make it a group project) it should be a good hour and a half? Maybe a little more? That was a good length right?   
  
His nervous smile turned grin at the speechlessness. He nodded once at Dani's question, now feeling smug and his brother's laughter was enough to make him gri1n ear to ear again, until everybody had joined in. "You're welcome," Tony smirked in response to his brother calling him a dick.   
  
Now he was breathing normally again, pleased and happy. Tony hadn't seen Oli laugh that genuinely in...years? It had been years! A softer smile passes his face now. Call him 12 years old all you like, but 12 year olds were only interesting in opening presents to see what they got, Tony found much more happiness just seeing them all like this.   
  
"Ton-ton," he corrects even though that wasn't true either, so he shakes his head, grinning, "nah, I didn't want to make myself a character and have him outshine the protagonist," he teased. "Though the narrator and the King do get into some amusing aside arguments." He nods, smirking and then as he sees Dani skimming forward he makes a mental note to get her a copy sometime.   
  
Turning back to Stefanie as she corrects her title, he grins and then explains, "Copyright, couldn't bear to do it." But 'Princess Yummy' was the name King Olironni first used, knowing the stories. She corrects him and then expresses she goes by Dragon Mistress now, but shh spoilers.   
  
"Okay! So where's my gift?" The moment he asked, a toy soldier poked him to get his attention and handed him a little box wrapped in the meticulous wrapping that could only be his brother. Taking it from the soldier with a quick thanks, he begins to unwrap it immediately. Opening the little box, his eyes widen as he sees the tickets. "You bitch, you didn't," he picked them up, reading them over and over again and then drew in a breath as he saw the backstage passes under the tickets. Concert, backstage, to meet his idol: Justin Timberlake.   
  
"You bitch, you did!!!" He grinned, doing a little bouncy dance in his seat before laughing once and holding the tickets against his bejeweled shirt, in the small spot he could reach that wasn't blocked by Stefanie being on his lap. With a grin he looked up at Oli. "Oh, I hate you! What am I going to wear?! What am I gonna say?! Is he going to like me?" There was a beat as he looked down again, two tickets. Who was he gonna bring?!  
  
  



	26. Wax On

**Tony:** Do you think, when you and Nadia get that muscle memory feeling, you just need some, *puts on shades* sexual healing?   
  
**Devin:** Ahh, *his hand going up in feigned surrender,* let's see, how many gay jokes can you get into one statement. And, *claps his hands together, checks his watch*, go!   
  
**Tony:** 'ooh a challenge! time me! *rubs his hands together, looks at them and then wiggles his fingers and starts making swirly patterns in the air*'   
  
**Devin:** ...you know, I'm not sure what you're describing here is actually anatomically possible.  
  
 **Tony:**   'anything is anatomically possible if you believe. *pauses* having magic also helps- ah ah! *slaps his hand away* my shades. get your own.'   
  
**Devin:** *Waiting for him to get it, and then nods,* ...there you go. Ah-oi- oiy, is that, *watching where he was slapped,* supposed to be some kind of move I'm mimicking or something?  
  
 **Tony:** '...are you kidding me right now? that's wax on! wax on, wax off? the karate kid? why do you think I call you La Russo- no, okay perfect. no, this is good! really! *conjures up some turtle wax and a couple of rags* now you can wax my car. wax on! *does the movement* wax off! *does the movement* wax on, right hand. wax off, left hand. breathe in through nose, breath out through mouth. wax on *makes motion* and wax off *makes it again and hands him the bucket of wax* don't worry, i've not used it for lube. fresh batch.'  
  
 **Devin:** To be honest, I stopped asking about that, the answers were getting disturbing. I'm not sure why you think me doing this is gonna make me call you Myagi either...*He looks where he's handed the bucket and just rolls his eyes and then starts smirking.* Yeah, yeah all riiiight. *He gestures with his hand as if saying 'get on with it', then alters it to do the wax on-wax off motion,* Seriously, how is doing this, supposed to help me learn to control the urge to --well, *smirks*...kill you?   
  
**Tony:** *enunciates* Mi-ya-gi. Three syllables, not two. *wiggles two fingers and then pops up a third, wiggling that too* Because, oh young one, the real lesson here is patience and mind power. Do you know how hard it is to do the same motion over and over again? Your arms start to get heavy, your muscles cramp- you know the biology better than I do. But! *holds up a finger* if you waver even a centimeter and don't do the action right, then it'll be all for naught. Focus! Work through the pain, learn ultimate self control *he smirks, shrugging at the irony* don't waver. Also, so the next time I do this *whacks the side of his head* you'll know how to parry it.  
  
 **Devin:** You know mi-ya-gi, if you call me the young one you make yourself seem like twice as old though, right? *Chuckling once to himself and then watches suspiciously the repeated movement until he starts to believe it actually is something worthwhile and then is too busy admitting yeah, he does know the biology to stop the blow.* Ah-oi-hey! *He reaches up and knocks his elbow out of the way.* Okay seriously? I'm just polishing your camaro. Which is fine, if that's what I'm doing, but tell me how this car actually made it to this country?  
  
 **Tony:** I'd be the hottest 50 year old ever to walk this Earth and that's including George Clooney and Harrison Ford. *he shrugs* So I don't mind that. *He wiggles his eyebrows and then snaps his fingers together* Well, I had to try. Hard work does breed discipline, though. *He puts a finger to his lips and then shhhs* that's a secret I'll never tell. XOXO, Gossip Tony.  
  
 **Devin:** You don't mind if I'm not the judge of that though? *He grins, leaning and setting the bucket down, then folds his arms over his chest and kicks his feet back as he listens.* Yeah, yeah. *Nods once.* That's what I figured actually, discipline. Just for the record, I don't mind the hard work so much as the fact I think respect's a better spark for it. Hard to respect when you're just screwing with me half the time 'gossip Tony.' *He goes into a higher voice and whispers.*  
  
 **Tony:** I mean, it'll hurt my feelings, but I understand. *He shrugged, grinning and then deliberating quickly (he was smart obviously so Devin had a point) but then just as quickly shook his head with a 'nah'* Would you rather I screw -you- half the time instead? *That was a good one. He'd had to know that one was coming though right? Too good to pass up.* Listen, you want someone to respect? Head straight on over to Miyagi Sr. I'm here to train you in hand-to-hand combat. I'm not a mentor, and i'm not a guru, I'm more like a....fitness coach! *He nodded* And the waxing my car bit was a joke. *very seriously* No one touches my baby.   
  
**Devin:** *He'd heard it as soon as he said it but couldn't be bothered to stop it. Rather, he lifts his hand, bit down on his knuckle and then offered aloud,* You ever miss the easy ones for integrity's sake just once? *Then drops his hand, smirking to himself as he thinks really, that one was pretty good for him. You'd think living with Al would have made him more prepared for the relentless innuendos. He arches his eyebrow.* You telling me I'm not supposed to respect my fitness coach? I get the hating you, part. *He says as he takes his jacket off and goes to reach for tape for his hands, but asks seriously anyways,* But what exactly are your qualifications then, again? *Eyes dart to the car, smirks, then tosses the jacket onto the hood of it.*   
  
**Tony:** Nop-uh. *He shook his head and then smirked, thinking to himself 'no silly goose, you're supposed to diiiisrespect me, but in the interest of being unpredictable again, he refrained. What he didn't refrain from, after watching Devin's jacket land on the hood of his car, was twist Devin's arm behind his back and hold his head down against the hood too. it took less than second* Want to see my qualifications again? *He smirks and then leans up* So, any ideas on how to get out of this armlock? *in sing song* lesson number eighteeeeeeen.  
  
 **Devin:** *Lets out a grunt and half-muttered 'ow-aw' sound -- shut up, it was a manly sound when a hybrid vampire-human is smashing your nose into reinforced glass and metal, while twisting your arm in ways Cirque de Solei had difficulty replicating. Squashed, he mutters back half into heated metal (damn this hood was hot), half through a smirk,* You know I'm touching your car, right? * Of course the moment the words were out of his mouth he's lifted half off the ground backwards, now off balance. Which was just great, considering he knew perfectly well what he actually had to do was lean forward at the waist, loosen the dick's grasp and extract his elbow before rolling away to re-stabilize. Yeah, yeah, lesson number -* Oi. *He rolled his eyes up to the sky overhead,* you stopped at number sixteen. *No he hadn't, but it does sound like the kind of thing Tony would do to bother him. He mutters under his breath as his head came down,* Dick, *and used the head-hanging to propel himself as forward as he could. Mother-- why was it, even with this damn mark, he couldn't seem to remember how strong Tony actually was? Fine, he couldn't get out of it standing straight. He aimed his free forearm for Tony's nose over his shoulder, then shuffles back. His free hand landed on his own wrist and pulls hard to relieve pressure on his throat before pitching forward. Slamming the free hand (don't hit the bucket, don't hit the bucket,) he slaps the ground, ignores the pain of hyper-extension and quickly feigns kneeling before rolling away.   
  
Within a second he's in the ready-stance again, the bruise on his nose itching something terrible, but he wasn't going to drop his arms just because of that.* You know, I didn't mean your fighting-qualifications -- I saw those in Notre Dame. *Kind of. His eyes narrow a bit in irritation, breathing hard.* Claude -chose- you to teach me, man, you want to tell me why you're so reluctant?  
  
 **Tony:** Not bad. *He wrinkled his nose and rubbed a hand over it, thankful it didn't start bleeding. His own blood wasn't enough to give him tunnel vision, but it certainly got him started as far as violent tendencies were.  
  
Tony pulled on his jacket, straightening out before he walked over to his car again and summoned one of the rags to him, wiping the spot. He took off Devin's jacket off the car too and tossed it.*  
  
Claude isn't exactly known for his stellar decisions, kid. He's got some good ones, most of them are just stupid. He chose to train me, now I'm a lean, mean, fighting machine. *By which of course he did mean killing machine.*  
  
You ever stop thinking hard enough about whether or not you can do something to decide whether or not you -should-? *He raises his eyebrows and then puts his hands behind his back and smirks* Try and hit me.   
  
**Devin:** *Catching his jacket as he responds,* Yeah, sure, *muttering under his breath,* if 'chose' is the same thing as a kid tracking him down and trespassing but, semantics. *It wasn't as if Claude couldn't have said no.   
  
Which was his point now, if Tony would stop screwing around slash quasi schooling him to actually listen. Devin wanted to know why Tony didn't say no. Why if it was so stupid, he'd decided to open his home and life up to Dev, knowing full well it was likely as not he'd snap and start actually trying to kill him. Why did it matter? Well.* Stupid, right. You know, considering I'm relying on you to keep me from murder, that was actually what I was doing right now. I know I could depend on you here. Should I, is my question, so yes, I'm wondering why you think it's so stupid if he personally trained you. Should I trust you?   
  
*Devin pauses and he tosses his jacket onto the ground instead as he answers his own question.* Actually I -don't-. You -or- your brother. *Olivier might have helped save his life; might have ensured he could help save his sister at the Gala, but Devin knew exactly where that loyalty extended from, and it wasn't to him. He also knew insulting Tony's brother was a surefire way to rile the guy up, and maybe -that- would make him take it a little more seriously.   
  
(Of course, and he's still smiling at the 'not bad' half-compliment for all it's worth.)   
  
His jaw sets and clicks at the bait, and he resettles in a stance. Tony looked relaxed. Which made it rather difficult to be able to see if Tony was leaning any particular way. Intentionally looking to Tony's right shoulder as he stepped warily closer, Dev aims for his gut instead, ducks his head at the same time, in case Tony grabbed for his neck again.*   
  
**Tony:** *He smirked in pride. Yeah, he did do that. So he supposed he really couldn't get on the Scooby Gang's case about you know...burning down Notre Dame, especially when it wasn't entirely their fault. But Tony never claimed not to be a hypocrite.*  
  
No. Trusting me, that comes later. *Trusting Olivier? That would probably come a little later. He refrained from snorting, and realized he didn't have a real answer for Devin's previous question yet. He needed to think, and decision-making was much better after exertion. Alright, time for a fight.  
  
Devin came forward, looking at his right shoulder, but his footing and his movements gave him a clue of what he was actually leaning to. Tony's right foot slid backwards, turning his entire body sideways and bringing a hand down to block Devin's fist and brought his knee up as Devin ducked his head before he pushed him away with a little kick to the chest. Just a little one.  
  
He went back to the position he was before and grinned.* Again.  
  
 **Devin:** *Oh goddammit. He wants to say 'not likely' but considering his breath was stifled by a sudden blow to his chest, he decided he didn't give a fuck at that moment if he trusts Tony or not. Hitting him, now, that was a pleasant thought. He didn't actually feel much pain; already, he could tell the mark was amping his adrenaline. Or maybe that was just his anger. Yeah, the two weren't mutually exclusive.   
  
Easily regaining his footing even as he rubs once over his heart, like he was checking it was still there, his eyes narrow. Tough guy, smart ass. Dev'd been getting in fights for the better part of the year, and still, Tony made shooting crossbow bolts at Alcott look like a child's first archery range at the local Robin Hood Pageant. At least he knew not to actually hit where his eyes aimed, all right? (Lesson fourteen.)  
  
Taking a step to the side this time, he hooks left as he moves, trying to use his momentum to both strike and misdirect the fact he was still aiming to grab Tony's arm when it shot out. If he could just get a grip on him--*  
  
 **Tony:** *Easy comeback, good.* Know when to block, Dev. *Devin was at him again, much better than before. Claude had taught Tony to work past his anger, to not let the focus on fighting be raw emotion, but he'd only started doing that when he realized Tony tended to go super-hybrid-chomp-chomp mode when he did that. That's because hunters did train to give in to the rage, because with the anger came the instinct, the instinct the mark provided. Knocking Devin on his ass a couple of times was really only helping him.  
  
Now when Tony went to block, Devin wasn't aiming to hit, but to grab. Good! Tony spun into the hold on his own accord, bringing his elbow from his free hand up under Devin's chin, to hit it and jam it in throat.*  
  
 **Devin:** *Know when to block - yeah, right, like he could be psychic when Tony wasn't initiating the sequences. (Actually, that was exactly what he was supposed to be: psychic, the mark gave him the instinctive edge if he relaxed into it. The trouble was thinking too much - the trouble was...Audrey wasn't there and he was afraid of giving in to it. He knew at that moment he couldn't kill Tony (physically capable, that was, desire was a whole different demon), but Al? Alcott was a wolf. If he gave into this rage, the one right there, in his gut, fury simmering under his skin, itching to burn free -- he knew already how to take Alcott out. (Thank God he didn't have to make his mate Wolfsbane anymore; that was too easy to poison.)  
  
Straightening back quick, he jams his grip on Tony's elbow, hanging on as he twists his neck right to avoid the jab to his chin. His feet scramble from effort to hold on even one handed, but he twists his wrist to hyper-extend Tony's left arm with his right hand. His left hand hooks again towards Tony's nose.*  
  
 **Tony:** *He hissed, his arm extended painfully, and Devin blocked the shot to his chin, using the momentum to give him a good punch to the nose. Yeah that definitely hurt. His head snapped back and then forward, slamming the top of his head to Devin's face in a head butt to disorient him.  
  
He slides his right foot behind Devin's left foot and sweeps it forward, angling so that he's pushing with his right shoulder and pulling him down with his left arm which Dev still had gripped by his wrist, but as they tumble to the ground, is released.  
  
Tony quickly rolled and stood up again, taking the rag to clean up around his nose, just in case.* Good, but your feet weren't planted, made it easy to take you down. *He cradles his left wrist and then nodded.* Nice dodge too.  
  
 **Devin:** *Dizzy and coughing out dust as he suddenly sees spinning birds in trees overhead, he wants to retort he couldn't keep his feet planted and dodge at the same time, but yeah -- all right, that was a technicality that...was mostly not true anyway. The point was he should have adjusted to plant his feet the moment his fist hit Tony's nose. Rolling over to his side and using his good knee (that is, the one that didn't just accidentally brace his fall) to press back up.   
  
Gripping his fist, unclenching, gripping again, and unclenching again, he shakes out and then summons the tape.* Yeah - do you have a steel plate in your - well, your entire skull? *Devin gestures around his face with a small smirk. He was mostly kidding. He knew perfectly well where Tony's super strength came from. Taping his wrist (and trying not to beam too much in happiness of the compliment; it figured he'd be better at dodging than actually aiming-and-striking, even when angry), he watches Tony clean around the face in question. Biting down on his tongue, his curiosity - and come on, he was putting his sanity in this man's hands remember! - got the best of him.* Is the sight of blood really that dangerous for you even when it's your own, Narcissus?   
  
*Okay, the smart-ass part of the remark, that was on him, but his head hurt and also there were momentarily two Tony's. Because one wasn't enough for the world. His teeth cut into the white tape and ripped the edge free. Scraggy fiber tucked under his thumb. His eyes stay on Tony.*  Just curious how it actually works. *One hand goes up in surrender.*


	27. Clementine

The first time Olivier had approached Harper, he'd told him he had a peculiar hobby. Watching someone realize, as you defy the reputation so spectacularly and carefully built (day by day, year by year), that they didn't know you at all held a strange fascination for him. In that moment he could pretend that if he was better than they thought. If he was better than they thought, perhaps he wasn't so bad. He wasn't good, but (to use the double negative his brother was so fond of), he was not not good either.  
  
In the aftermath of that damned organization falling apart, he dealt with the inevitable other side of the coin. Now, he finds himself surrounded by people telling him he was good: a good brother (Tony knew better, but he'd forgotten he did), a good shoulder to cry on (Eliza had pretended for his sake not to see the tears in his own eyes), a good friend to turn to (ha, Hans knew better now). He had saved people, helped them. It's not a lie to say he hates the idea of hurting innocents either.  
This man Blanc was hardly innocent though.  
  
Drumming his fingers on his desk, it was the first time since Blanc came in he'd moved. Blanc noticed, by the way he shuts up. Olivier had sat in silence, half listening to the explanation, half turning his peculiar reputation game over in his mind. Now he nods for his guest to continue, picking a clementine apart on the desk. The knife to do so lay forgotten. He preferred ripping it apart with his fingers, letting the juice coat his fingers like silk.  
  
It was a lie to say he was good. Harper hadn't known, after all, that it was the first time he approached him. The man was a genius when it came to his science; brilliant with melding physics and magic. It bled out into his life, if one thought Harper Brackner was ever unintelligent they were an idiot but there were things he didn't know. The art of garnering his help had been one of them: such a game was a seduction, and Harper still was trying to figure out how he had attracted his beautiful wife all those years ago, let alone managed to hold on to her.  
  
It was a lie, he thinks at the back of his mind, an uncomfortable one. He couldn't be good: he craves violence, and it's practice and willpower that keeps him from tearing into people's necks, ripping them apart, draining them dry for kicks or blood he wasn't sure. He duped even himself for years on the game he played to bring his brother into this life, because he was too selfish to be alone. He even turned on his father, the person who'd been there for him all along. (But that was the "moral" thing to do, so no one cared, or worse praised him for it). Still, it was laughable. Good? He's the one that drove his little brother to torture.  
  
"Stop." He lifts one hand from the desk, wiggles fingers through the air to get Blanc to still for a second. "They falsified the warrant, you won't go to trial. That isn't my concern at the moment."  
  
"Then...what is?"  
  
Idiot, D'Grey thinks, as he peels another red-orange slice. What was his concern? The juice was thick in this one, maybe he should grab that knife after all. Oh, a half hundred things. How had they gotten into your flat? How had they seized your product and planted it? How did they know when you would be out? Were you compromised by your own agent?  
Blanc's question was cut off (a good thing, too, for D'Grey had smiled and clearly been spending too long thinking about the violence he craves) when he hears a chuckle. It sounds like someone agreed with him. An ear perking up, D'Grey drops his hand back to his clementine.  
  
"Chantel."  
  
"Bonjour, cheri."  
  
D'Grey rips another piece of the skin, picks up an eighth and pops it between his teeth. Sucking dry the under-skin before swallowing whole, he comments idly.  
  
"Blanc, would you be so kind as to give us a moment?"  
  
Before the man had blinked, D'Grey was across his office, sticky fingers clamped on Chantel's throat. She, wisely, didn't move. Blanc, just as wisely, did precisely as he was told. Well, he suggested. Chantel waits until the door was closed again, then twists her hand around his wrist, lifting his fingers from her pale, tempting skin one-by-one, each accented with a word.  
  
"You should know better, D'Grey."  
  
Five fingers, fine words, five syllables. He was lucky she didn't add a sixth, he knew: she wouldn't ruin her rhythm just for the satisfaction of taking his neck as well. (He wasn't worth it, he learned a long time ago. That had been one of his first lessons).  
Rolling his eyes up to the ceiling, he stepped back, uncaring for the sudden ache in his wrist.  
  
"Oh, I do. As you know If I wanted to hurt you," D'Grey comments idly, taking the sore wrist behind his back and soothing it as he rubs the juice against his pulse, "I'd actually have done so."  
  
A smirk spreads across Chantel's lips as she picks herself off the window-frame. They were delicate steps, as if in contradiction of herself and the inner nature he was fully aware of. As if in spite of it. D'Grey didn't move now, hands still braced behind his back as he tracks her slow journey across his office, heels muffling on the thick carpet. What was she doing there? Chantel dropped a hand to the half-ripped open fruit, toying with the sticky shell with a sharp nail.  
  
"Ah, right." She allows him that freely, tucking a scarlet strand behind her ear as she plucks a slice for herself. "That was a demonstration for the dealer's sake, not mine."  
Like him, she ignored the knife. The sunrise-shaped and colored fruit balances on her cherry lips while she eyes him in knowledge and bemusement.  
  
"What made you insecure?"  
  
Olivier scoffs the question away, unbothered. She was right, of course: Blanc was the one who needed to be afraid of him. His employees were the ones to need that reminder. (Maybe not just his employees, but to dwell on that would be pathetic). Yes, she was right, but if she really thought he'd be ruffled by that ha, well. Wasn't the point that no one really knew him after all? The game was back, and he was in a vengeance to win with all the players changed.  
  
Chantel only smirks. "Or should I say who?"  
  
She eats her stolen piece of his fruit.  
  
"What are you doing here?" D'Grey ignores her question, taking a few steps himself to close the window behind him. His gaze darts across the grounds to ascertain there were no others in the vicinity and that his shields had held; he saw a bend in the nearby railing and that his parasol had been turned. That explains her supernatural ascension. Locking the door again, he turns back with only an eyebrow raise and smirk.  
  
"Isn't Stefanie's presence enough of a spy for Marcus? He didn't need to send his escort as well."  
  
"Escort." Chantel flicks her upper lip, like she was savoring the way he made the word sound: polite, restrained, like it was dying to be torn apart and corrupted. "No need to stand on ceremony Oli, you know I prefer 'courtesan,' as that's what I was, if you're going to go there. Or whore." Her tongue snaps against her teeth. "It just sounds so ... much more raw."  
  
His lips curl as he steps to his desk, as if tickled by a breeze that now slips across the room and snakes down her spine. Except, hadn't he just closed that door? Hand trailing over the wood surface as her gaze is casually glancing over him, his thumb brushes on the stiletto blade, lingers and then retreats to the fruit. Remnants of it had squished between her fingers, so the mouth-watering liquid were turning maroon on his parchment. D'Grey surveys the stained letters for a second, smirk unmoved.  
  
"Raw." He echoes, wonders if she knows she's using slang that the Californian he'd recently met so enjoyed. Probably not. Should he tell her she sounds more like an LA surfer than escort, courtesan or whore?  
  
"Have you spent time in the states recently, Chantel? As I understand it," Insecure, his ass," 'Raw' has become as common as 'wicked.' "  
  
The flash in her eyes gives her destination away before she leaps. She'd trained him too well, he would think in bemused irony when on top again. She said he was out of control; he'd called her common. And besides: it was Stefanie's transformation he owed her for. The girl he met at eleven who was now a confessed killer; his mate's little sister who he'd helped drain someone near-dry. The one he was now forced to teach all the things Chantel had taught him; how to feed on humanity, suck its' bones dry of worth.  
  
There was a rush: blurred skin and abrupt sharp teeth, screeching aluminum (oh, that would be his chair tipping over then), glass aha, there might as well have been one of those chattering, twittering birds from Tony's cartoons spinning over his head. They spin into things as they snap and slice; grabbing at flurries of limbs. She's stronger than him, faster than him - but he knew her, and he knew her too well. He would end up on top. Olivier D'Grey was promising it, and he didn't break his promises.  
  
Ha. There was blood on his cheek from her nails when he spun to avoid the jab; her scarlet hair had come free in the scuffle, his top was missing buttons. The bruises he'd given her were disappearing before his eyes. The ones she gave him would last a little longer. But now she was laughing under his fingers at her throat, her arms up on his carpet in surrender. That makes his nose wrinkle and he squeezes harder, seething as he breathes out.  
  
"Why did you do it?"  
  
"Oh, you have been a naughty boy haven't you, D'Grey?" Her voice was a purr even when strangled for air and still ignores his question, "You've been drinking."  
  
Olivier knew she didn't mean the bourbon on his desk, but he'd have some of that now. He lets her get up only as she trails nails under the opening in his shirt and slaps the hand away retorting, "Have some respect for yourself, Chantel. Or I'm going to reconsider killing you - or rather, I think my girlfriend will do that for me."  
  
There was a tsk-tsk sound deep in her throat (and a roll of her eyes at the world "girlfriend") and she rears up - refusing to let him grab the bourbon. Instead he finds his head jammed back on the carpet, her skirt over his abdomen, her hands under a shirt now entirely ruined to press nails into his chest.  
  
D'Grey rolls his eyes as he looks up at her: mind impossibly clear for the first time in days. Backwards as ever Oli, he chides himself mentally through his idle, stained smirk.  
"So much for not looking desperate."  
  
The gashes she draws in his chest was worth the look on her face; for someone who hadn't had blood of her own in a century without theft, a hell of a lot of it had just risen in her cheeks.  
  
"So much for knowing better."  
  
Chantel pouts like a kitten. She slaps like a teenage-girl sometimes; but he prefers the claws in his chest to that. (He doesn't want reminding some part of her was just a girl).  
Not trying to move, he murmurs in heat under his breath.  
  
"Why did you do it?"  
  
There's a flash of something in her gaze, but this time he doesn't know what it indicates. She didn't need to leap, she had him pinned down already. Hiss escaping his throat as she unclenches her grip, she brings bloodied nails to her lips. Sucks on them while she pretends to misunderstand his question.  
  
"Stefanie?" She hums. God, all Olivier wanted right then was to finish his clementine.  
  
"Yes, Stefanie." He knocks her hands away again and pulls himself to sit up, eyes dark.  
  
"I didn't turn her." Chantel was still sucking on her thumb, batting Bambi eyes at him. He takes her wrist, yanks her bloodied hand free and ignores how it calls him to him to lick clean. The monster in his chest still roars, but was going to have to be satisfied by his breaking her wrist.  
  
"I know that," he snaps as the bone breaks, "but she went to Marcus after talking to you."  
  
To Chantel's credit, even as she takes his throat with the good hand, she didn't flinch when the bone snapped. He's reminded how many times she'd broken his and knows: he wouldn't have flinched either. But this wasn't about either of them.  
  
The sunlight is masked by her hair, giving her a mad red halo reflected in his gaze, like the last burning coal in a pit. His voice hisses as a dying fire. "She hadn't hurt anyone. She hadn't done anything Stefanie had a chance, for a normal, happy, life."  
  
Here's what Olivier didn't say: that's what my brother wants. Normalcy, evenings at the pub, walks on the promenade, family trips for ice cream at the pier. Ferris wheels and kisses atop them. A life where the biggest problems were blaming the government for hosing bans and your kids getting a C on a test. No more hit men, bloodlust police questionings, interrogations, blood stains on their carpets. Normalcy, and all the melodramatic wonderful bullshit that went with it because it was safe, because he could be loved because he would be free.  
  
He doesn't say: he can't have that because of-  
  
"And you stole that away from her. Why?"  
  
"Stefanie didn't do anything." Chantel echoes him, mocking, and clearly no longer playing nice-kitty with him. Her voice ice to his fire (ha, ha, wouldn't Tony be proud of him for that?), "That's the point. She couldn't interfere, she couldn't save who she loved she didn't do anything."  
  
"A mi madone, don't give me that." Olivier broke into a long-winded Italian curse. His hand whipped to grab at the wrist holding his throat and after both of them sat struggling, he had his freedom again.  
  
"I understand her impulse. What I don't understand, Chantel," His voice was low, even as they sit with steady glares, "is how you didn't tell her she'd come to regret it."  
  
"You don't know what you're talking about. I gave her a choice. She took what she wanted."  
  
He would have let her bruise him again with her petulant snap, but to his mild disappointment - she lets him go. There's heat in her eyes as she watches him fix his shirt, but none in her breath on his raw skin. None in her chilled, pale skin even as she watches him fix his shirt: there was nothing there. Oh, he understood Stefanie's impulse alright: what wouldn't he have done for Tony? Even as they come to stand slowly, rising at the same pace without blinking away, he knows better from the look she gives him.  
  
"She took what she thinks she wanted." He says, ice in his own gaze as he walks to the desk and finishes peeling the fruit. He still wants to break Chantel's spine for turning her, but he knew it was Stefanie's choice. And yeah, he didn't want to add a corpse to their list of issues: especially as he thinks he'd heard Tony (which meant Audrey and Devin were too) in the manor.  
  
Popping the last piece of the fruit in his mouth, he watches Chantel sit on the edge of his desk as he sucks it dry.  
  
"But oh, Chantel." Vampire's lived forever; that was the one part of the curse, the lonely existence of watching those you loved die, that he and Tony, thankfully did not have.

"I do know what I'm talking about."  
  
In an instant she has his knife, but even as it rests on his neck, D'Grey knew as well as she did: she could cut him, and he'd still have won. Licking his lip free of his own blood and clementine, he murmurs, almost playful and light,  
  
"Who's insecure now?"  



	28. Judgy

They had generally avoided looking at each other, and they barely spoke. Audrey'd come with Devin to ensure that his Mark didn't go haywire and try to assume control over Devin's psyche, something she was cautious after all of her research. She had agreed to go before she knew that the one who would train him was none other than Antonio D'Grey. The only positive thing about this was watching his face when he saw her. That makes two of us, pal, she almost said but instead kept walking forward to the grounds while the men prepared to spar.  
  
Yeah, every bone in his body was sore, but that didn't mean Devin had to tell anyone that. Least of all the reason for it being that way: sparring with the hybrid had started off seeming like a gift. Oh, here's an excuse for me to hit a D'Grey, over and over again! Yeah, like anything in his life was that easy. The moment he'd drawn blood too, Tony had "impromptu" decided it was a stellar time for a run around the property. How damn big was this manor house, anyway?

He might have done with a warning of who exactly it was that Devin was bringing with him. He had said friend and Tony had assumed it would be another one of the ones he'd met- Irene or Alcott or Rory, someone from the Scooby Doo Gang. He wasn't aware the gang had added another member.  
  
Still, he couldn't exactly turn them away could he? So hospitable host he became. And he'd done a bang up good job of not having killed them either! Though he had instantly gulped down the flask he had on him.  
  
Audrey looked less-than-thrilled to be headed in to the manor, something Devin was a bit sorry for. After wiping his face off with a towel and chucking it atop his bag, he leaned over to her and said easily,  
  
"I just need a shower." Admitting aloud to anything about the "why" he thought she looked that way would have been rude, naturally. He looked at Tony, rubbing at sore shoulders, surprised to realize that he was being offered the option of taking one here. D'Grey manor might have been huge (he would know, he just ran around the perimeter of it, twice) but it still was a kind of personal thing to offer.  
  
Damn D'Grey's and their constant reputation-upheavals.  
  
"Then we can go."  
  
Relief at leaving was stopped as she realized they weren't quite finished yet. Devin had been worked to the bone (she only hoped that the spell she had placed took effect so that Nadia wouldn't have to suffer the same muscular exhaustion), and would need to freshen up in this damn house. Perhaps the correct word should be 'damned', but she digressed.  
  
"Go ahead, I'll wait here," she nodded, smiling in an attempt to ward off the displeasure that only grew from being around here with every passing second.  
  
After a tiny scoff at Antonio's comment of 'making Devin's celibacy easier' while he instructed his maid to show Devin to a bathroom, Audrey turned away and with arms crossed in front of her chest, headed to a couch.

Now as Audrey waited for Devin to return from his shower (he couldn't let him walk out of the manor as that stinking mess now could he?), Tony thought about leaving her to wait by herself but knowing that his brother was conducting business, he couldn't let any potential scumbags get in her vicinity. At that point, he wasn't sure for whose sake he was doing it either.

Antonio remained, tapping his fingers against a bookshelf, causing Audrey to move forward to grab the newspaper off the coffee table. She was unsurprised to see a front-page article about Antonio's brother Olivier, though said article only referred to him by last name, D'Grey. The D'Grey here was being passed off as a charitable soul, protective over the goodwill of Paris, nay, of France in general.  
  
Certainly wasn't the same caliber of thought man she'd perceived him to be when she entered Notre Dame that day, following the trail she'd pick up from her father to arrive at the Death Eater's headquarters. Olivier D'Grey had been at the side entrance, allowing her entry; there was no ounce of charity that she could detect in his eyes that day, but neither did she see the powerful drug lord that was more of a true reputation than the one the newspaper was trying to pass off.  
  
"Olivier D'Grey has more layers than an onion, doesn't he?" she asked dryly, not expecting a response.  
  
Hearing the comment while he looked through books, Tony looks up, amused. "Oh I already beat you to that comparison years ago. Didn't really mind either, he just said that I implied myself as Donkey, being an ass."  
  
She wasn't sure where the sudden unrequested divulgence came from, but it only served to make her more uncomfortable. As always, when she was uncomfortable, Audrey took a defensive and snippy stance (it didn't help that she hated the man either).  
  
"And you're fine with that? Your brother being the intimidating Ogre and you the dumbed-down sidekick?"  
  
Tony bristled, pursing his lips before declaring quite happily (bit too happily), "I'm fine with being Donkey. I rather be Donkey than Shrek. Everybody loves Donkey! He's got all the memorable lines, he's endearing--"  
  
"He ends up marrying a dangerous predator and having mutant hybrid babies with her." She smirks thinking of Antonio's current relationship which she knew more than she wanted to about due to Irene's constant rambling,  
  
"So actually, yeah, quite telling."  
  
Oh, so Audrey had comments then? Fine.  
  
"You'd obviously be Lord Farquaad." He stated it quite plainly.  
  
Her eyebrows rose as she listened, shaking her head. "Hmm, you're ignoring what I said because you know I'm right."  
  
He allows, "You're not wrong per se." Given that Stef was a dangerous predator now, then again so was he, and that any children they could have (by some dastardly ritual and black magic that Audrey was so fond of) were bound to be demonic hybrid monsters, yes, she wasn't wrong.  
  
"Wow, admittance of defeat from you? I would say I'm shocked but-"  
  
He turned to fully face her now, eyebrows rising.  
  
"Excuse you?" He did not like what she was implying.  
  
Ah, she had touched a nerve there. Good. She tilted her head up, raising her chin and then spoke as plainly as she had been all along.  
  
"I didn't stutter."  
  
Why that insipid- he pursed his lips, reminding himself to play nice. After a brief pause he chuckles, shaking his head. "I take it back. You're not Lord Farquaad at all, you're the Ugly Stepsister with the mole and the manly voice."  
See? Back to childish.  
  
She rolled her eyes. "Such a clever comeback."  
  
"And the cankles and the bunions."  
  
"You're still an ass," she added, faking a smile at a him as she closed the newspaper and leaned forward to place it back on the coffee table.  
  
He raised a finger, adding as if it were the most important point out of the entire conversation.  
  
"But a lovable one."  
  
She doubted it, and her arched eyebrows said so, "With deeply imbedded separation anxiety. Cut the umbilical cord from your brother already."  
  
He snapped instantly, his patience failing and his temper rising. "How is any of this your business?"  
  
Was he fucking serious? With gritted teeth she snapped back just as harshly, "You made it my business when you took my cousin's life to spare--"  
  
With his throat closing, he had to growl if only to clear his airway to be able to speak  
"You don't know shit-"  
  
She speaks over him standing up, taking steps closer to him and snapping back, "-- as if hers was worth any less!"  
  
A pang in his chest; he'd already thought to himself everything she was yelling at him. He took a step as well, "I've already apolo-"  
  
Aghast, she continues. "You think that's how it works?!" She scoffs, narrowing her eyes in his direction, taking another step and all but spitting out, "You're more naive than I thought."  
  
With gritted teeth, it was all he could do to get out, "And you are way in over your head here."  
  
"What you gonna do?," her eyebrows rise, "snap my neck too?!"  
  
"Oh don't tempt me, little witch." He hissed it.  
  
"Excuse me."  
  
A voice came from the door-frame, casual as her lean against it.  
  
"How many have you killed?" Echoing as she quotes, Stefanie was twirling a strand around her fingernail, "Countless." The answer had set a shiver up her spine the first time she watched the show; now she grins in a way that was all teeth. She pushed off the wall, a slow smirk on her lips.  
  
"And how many have you saved? Half a million." Answering herself as quickly as she began, she let's the beat fall as it did in the episode, her hand going to her hip, bridging fingers across her skirt.  
  
"Population of Kings Landing." Her eyes met Audrey's as her words continue in low heat, not able to bring herself to look at Tony. Never mind the fact he was the reason she was there.  
  
"If you're going to judge a man, consider the whole story."

A Jaime Lannister comparison. Oh but, Tonio now was playing so many different roles from that series: the bastard blacksmith, the young lord commander, the ostracized and disgraced knight, and now the crippled Kingslayer. Next week, he'd be the honorable and foolish head(less) of an ancient and noble house, or maybe the unloved and scorned, disfigured monster. He and Tyrion did have the patricide in common at least (though he always believed Tywin would have died anyways, he had clearly been poisoned by the Red Viper- now he was getting off point.)

He had taken a step away from Audrey as he heard Stefanie's voice interrupt them, and turned to look at her even if she couldn't quite meet his gaze. His mouth was halfway open with her name on the tip of his tongue before he decided to swallow it instead, staying silent.

Tony had turned to her; she knew, though she didn't blink away from the brazen "little witch." His heart rate had skipped up, she heard his breath catch and wither on his lips as if words die between his teeth and tongue. Mostly, she heard it in the way his blood rushes faster through his neck; that she could almost taste.  
  
So she was grateful to the distraction, even as her eyes were icy cold and lips curled in as frozen a smile as she was given.

Audrey hadn't even noticed there was anyone there until she'd spoken. Then again, as she spoke and judging by Tony's reaction, Audrey had a very good idea of who the woman was, and therefore the possibility that she hadn't been there before she'd spoken became all the more possible.  
  
Essentially, the woman was asking Audrey (more like telling her) that she shouldn't judge Tony without knowing the full story and the silent 'back away from my man' was all but palpable in the air.  
  
"I do know the full story," she managed in a voice cold. Her gaze was on Stefanie but her words, they were directed at the man not three feet from her. "Straight from the donkey's mouth. As he explained to me exactly why it was," she swallowed, "he killed my cousin after he tortured her." And that'd only been after she confronted him, after she told him that bullshit lie he'd told Emily's parents and her fiancé wouldn't work on her, that she knew his face which sported a mouth covered in blood, was the last thing her cousin had seen.

Her chin only rose more pointedly as she continued looking at the woman. "If the man who murdered Emily gets to walk around freely, my judgment is the minimum price he should pay."  
  
She added as an afterthought, "And I do believe this was a private conversation."

Still as a statue until the judgy-little-witch had stopped talking, she nods saying 'Hm' only and steps forward, though she has no desire to descend the three steps. Only stands at the top of them, curls her hand around the little bannister near a crystal decanter as if to reassert that she was atop them.  
  
"Oh, good. So you know, then, that his cover cost a half dozen, maybe a full dozen lives, but saved hundreds. Maybe even thousands, preemptively Tony, how many are in this city? Damn, where is D'Grey's census data when you need it?"  
  
"Three million I believe," Tony answered quickly and factually as if it was the most casual thing in the world. Though it was information a few years inaccurate; he'd only gone over it when he was pretending to actually be immersed in the business. Ha, and he thought he'd sold his soul then.  
  
Stefanie shrugs to the first point, words crisp through a tongue she felt sharpening against her own teeth. (Had Tony really told her all? It burned in her gut like an ember to think he'd been fully honest with a woman beside her, even though she knew that wasn't fair.  
  
Magnified jealousy issues, yeah yeah Oli, she knew.)  
  
"That's a big 'maybe'," Audrey points out, watching Stefanie as Audrey was determined to avoid his gaze at least until the last moment she had to stay here. Weren't men supposed to be quick about their showers?  
  
"Honey, I'm very sorry for your cousin's sake. I know you have no reason to believe that though, as a half dozen or full dozen other's don't have any reason to either - so I won't insult you by repeating it further. I would know. After all, my little brother was one of those dozen."  
  
Nope, Tony knew selling his soul as closer to now, to the Death Eaters when he'd had to kill Emily and yes, as Stefanie so casually reminded them, had allowed Marcel to die as well.  
  
"I don't know about you, but knowing my family member's death was a sacrifice for the 'greater good'," she scoffed briefly because the more correct term was 'lesser evil', "doesn't do a damn thing to make me feel better." And if Stefanie could really forgive Antonio for the death of her brother, that was entirely on her but it did not mean she had to do the same. She felt about people as she pleased, judged them as she would, and spoke to them as they deserved. Audrey still a girl in age sometimes had to allude to her own youth to remind her. Petulant as ever, Audrey did not like being told what to do.  
  
"I can take care of myself, 'honey'." And I don't need fangs to do it, her gaze seemed to say as she turned away and headed back to the couch, picking up the newspaper. Shrugging a shoulder, Stefanie licks slowly at her bottom lip as she watches the woman's chin lift, sees the angry flash in her eyes. But what interests her most is she can't seem to hear or she could, but it was..muted? the woman's heart. Curious...  
  
"Fair enough," she says it quickly, not missing the slight with narrow eyes.

It made her wary. That should make her soften, but Stefanie rarely did what she should. And she was ticked. Wrinkling her nose, she speaks just as sweetly as before.

"Though word of advice, judge. Sentencing him in D'Grey manor?" Her smile pulls up at the edges. "Not smart. D'Grey's aren't known for silencing them in nice ways, you know, especially when looking after their own. And uh - private conversation, here?"

She'd been intentionally trying to drown out the altercation that's last words had been confusing her so but the sudden scent of blood atop it makes her realize she couldn't ignore it further.  
  
If there was one good thing about this life of his, it was that the women who were a part of this life as well tended to be such deadly, fierce opponents and very quick to altercations. Call him a typical man for garnering some amusement from this but no one else could deny it wasn't attractive. Even if no claws, or fangs, were out yet. If he had some fangs, they would have been out as he heard what Stefanie quickly said.

"Speaking of Tony?"  
  
Now she does round to him, her lips pressing tightly together in the flash of something hot swelling in her chest when their eyes lock.  
  
"You might want to get to your brother's office. I'm fairly sure Chantel has a knife to his neck."

No time to wonder why Stef just hadn't gone herself to check, Tony cursed under his breath and simply told them 'behave' (felt the glares at his back for daring them to tell them how to act!) before he quickly left the room in a flash and opened the door to his brother's office.  
  
As Tony sped by her with the light word "behave," she finds her mood much improved by the show. Was that his manly bravado, the heat in the air from his rising heart-rate, or brotherly affection? Er - all three, sue her.  
  
Still, she stayed perfectly still as she saw the girl return to the newspaper, thinking over what she'd said herself. Her too-sharp teeth dig into her tongue and even as she listens hard for what was going on in the other room, she pours herself a drink from the decanter.  
  
"Fair enough. And I suppose it should be harder to forgive," She hadn't don't that either, but cease holding a grudge she had anyway, and this girl didn't need to know that, "Actively taking part as opposed to idle inaction, refusing to save."  
  
Her words were anything but idle. She caps the crystal, lifting the glass with a raised eyebrow to gesture at the wall. "But, you see that?"  
  
The hole stares back at them, and Stefanie shrugs again, sipping the bourbon down as fast as she could to stay the craving rising. Whatever this girl was doing to mask her heart-rate she was grateful for, honestly, but it didn't do anything to stay her delicious scent. Like honey and cloves, she thinks, head tilted.  
  
"That's where he put his fist through the wall one night because of what the organization was making him do." Another fiery sip, and Stefanie was certain she was going to have to leave this room. (Plus, the girl deserved her privacy - Lord knew, she wasn't sure why she was even still talking.) "Whole manor was nearly turned upside down, actually, trust me it wasn't a pretty sight."  
  
Her eyes were hard still when she looks back to the girl, but she sets the glass down and she slipped a hand into her back pocket as she finishes quietly. "You're crazy, if you think he's free."  
  
Her tongue flicks across her lip, but after a beat, she nods her head, tossing blonde hair back over her shoulder.  
  
"Anyway. I'll leave you to your ... paper."  
  
And in a flash, she was out on the balcony, gone.


	29. Cinderella

Tony didn't stop to look around, he would have to do that later. Instead, and in perfect accordance to the act he'd given Chantel upon seeing her again, he kept moving forward at his quickest speed and pushed her away from his brother but oh, he continued with the trajectory as well; he pinned her to the wall with a smirk on his face.  
  
"Cherie," he spoke, elongating the last syllable as he tilted his head, tutting his tongue afterward. "Now what, has my rude brother done to you?" A knife to his brother's throat- unforgivable act, even if Olivier was probably holding his own,even if Olivier had most likely provoked that; Chantel wasn't the type to be that blunt about threats unless her ego had been bruised. Then again, his brother did know her better.  
  
"Olivier, is this how we treat our guests now?" He asked without looking away from Chantel, channeling his anger into a look that was probably a little mad; the English definition, see: crazy, cuckoo, nuts.  
  
Cool steel had been pricking his neck, but Olivier's gaze had stayed relatively steady on Chantel's lips. He was certain: if he was in actual danger, it was from her mouth, not the little knife. She'd want to taste his fear herself. Which might be why he had none; he wasn't going to give her what she wanted.  
  
The door was barely open for a moment before his brother was through it, he throat released. Olivier catches the falling knife, hilt first with ease. He rises as he hears the crash, turning even as he continues to play with the knife. His ears perk up.  
"Ru-excuse me, rude brother?" He echoes, amused. Yeah, it was probably wrong that he was bemused by his own echo, cupping his ear and repeating what he seemed not to hear with the hand holding the knife. Did he care it was wrong and backwards? Well, not at this moment.  
  
A chuckle, trapped there in faux timid-amusement slips through parted, painted lips as she slams into the wall. Well then. Olivier had always been fun to play with - but Antonio as well? The strength he squeezes her with stronger than his brother, that was new was as alluring as the wicked smirk on his face. (His eyes were going insane but she didn't ever mind that.) Smirking herself, she decides to let him press her there a moment, enjoying too much.  
  
"God, you're hot. When did you get so hot?"

Well they couldn't both play bad cop here, after all. Judging by the state of the room, Olivier was bad cop (and Chantel was bad girl but, details) so he had to be the charismatic, charming, much more agreeable brother, without appearing boring. The key was to hold attention and while Tony's incredible good looks helped on that front, he needed the attitude to go along with it.  
  
It's no longer surprising to him how easily he could slip into his roles like a well-dedicated method actor. Clearly it was working though, if her remark was telling. This time the smirk widened naturally. "I'm like fine wine. Sweet on the nose, tart on the tongue, burn in the throat, heat in the chest, and the added benefit of aging very, very well."  
  
Aging, as in the fact that he was still alive. He grew and he changed and he breathed and his heart beat (now much more rapidly than before) and in contrast her skin was cooler to the touch and the same as it had been when he'd first met her eight years ago. He tried not to think that eight years from now he'd look at Stefanie and think nearly the exact same thing.  
  
And then, it was his brother: she couldn't have him thinking she'd genuinely tried to kill D'Grey (and she hadn't, because if she had, he'd be dead) Antonio wouldn't forgive that, and it would ruin their fun. So she lifts her hand to his chest, runs her sticky nails, half of them still wet with his drying-blood against his collarbone as she murmurs.

"He was just offering me a drink, cherie. But I must say you smell much tastier right now."

Oh, Jesus.

Olivier almost corrects it, pointing the knife at the door to shut it behind her - and then reconsiders. Did he want Tony to know he'd been half attacking her for Stefanie's sake? (That wasn't the issue though, the issue was rather how easy it had been to picture killing Chantel.)  
  
There was an odd sad feeling over the thought though; after all, he'd never have learned control without her, and to say he'd not been fond of her was a lie too. He wrinkles his nose.  
  
"I think that over-simplifies things." He says instead, eyebrow cocked.  
  
Chantel smirks. "Who wants things too complicated?"

Yeah, that was blood. The scent more pronounced filled his nose. Judging by the fact that the blood was on her nails, he had to assume it was his brother's. It only made him angrier, but at least it was enough to keep him from sucking the blood off her fingers.  
Olivier offering Chantel a drink, yeah right. Only if he wanted Daniella to kill him, and knowing his brother he'd enjoy the attempt. Actually, could he be there just for the explanation? 'Honey, you see, what had happened was-', yep, that'd be amusing.  
  
"Not I," he chose to respond to instead of the comment of how tasty he'd be. Tony pushes off her, which included first pushing against her briefly to gain enough leverage and then put his hands in his pockets, just now noticing the full extent of the damage.  
  
Claw marks. Ho ho, his kingdom for Daniella's facial reaction to all of this right now. He walks instead to the bourbon on the desk, happy to see that it had suffered no injury.

  
"Oh but it seems I interrupted some fun," he wiggled his eyebrows and then took a swig before settling the bottle down again. "Good."  
  
"I can see that," Chantel purrs, a pink tongue running along her bottom lip. What she murmurs next was just for Tony's ears, despite the younger D'Grey's clear moral judgment in his retort about aging. She murmurs, "Let me taste it too..."  
  
Her thumb brushes against the fold on his shirt, eyes rounding like a pleading kitten. In a flash, though, she sees his anger turn to stiff irritation with his own hunger and she chuckles again.  
  
The way he lingers as he pushes against her makes it clear: "not I" was a lie, or rather, he'd been sucked into something very complicated indeed. She doesn't move.

Tony thinks: as much as a vamp-fight between Chantel and Stefanie would be enjoyable to watch, letting anyone else drink from him right at that moment (and at every moment actually; as he'd told a very lost Leo, he still didn't like how it felt or rather how it made him feel afterward), was just not a good idea.  
  
Instead, he went with a brief 'With my brother watching? Naughty' before he moved away.

Olivier watches closely, fiddling with the knife between thumb and index-finger, fidgeting in a manner he hadn't in years. Fidgeting gave things away; anxiety, uncertainty, blasted insecurity. It wasn't Chantel he was truly concerned of here, though. It was his brother's well-being, when blood was on the fingertips of the seductive, scarlet-haired (kissed by fire, right?) temptress and dancing beneath Tony's mouth.  
  
Pangs in his chest remind him it was his blood, but it didn't seem as important as the fact he was astonished to watch Tony turn it down - even if just for now, and just for a second. He went straight for the bourbon, but a small smile graced Olivier's mouth anyways.  
  
He waits for the bottle to be free, then conjures a glass with a flourish and pours a shot to lift to Chantel. He felt better, to see his brother there by his side - and truthfully he was gladder now they didn't have to hurt Chantel. He didn't have many people he'd known so long.  
  
"Good." He echoes in a dry, questioning snort, eyes flicking to his brother. "Thanks for the apology then, brother." His hand, the unstained one (which made it kind of awkward from the angle but he didn't care), smacks his brother's shoulder and then cups, squeezing for support.  
  
"You're most welcome, Olivier," Tony added cheerfully, doing everything in his power to keep his gaze from going to anything coated in blood. It made it difficult to put it from his mind though given that her vibrant hair only reminded him of the sticky liquid. The squeeze at his shoulder helps steady him at least but, damn Stef, a little warning next time.  
  
Chantel only chuckles, fixing her hair up slowly with the long nails she wasn't bothering to clean.  
  
"Oh, adorable. You're still blushing new, aren't you?" She looks at the elder D'Grey, then rolls her eyes in faux (mostly) disapproval. "Don't tell me you haven't even taken him hunting."  
  
Chantel was determined to keep her nails up though, she wanted Tonio to see it. To tempt him, because that's who she was; smoldering temptress.  
  
"I wouldn't say 'blushing'," he shakes his head, thinking that word too innocent to associate with the fact that being 'new' meant ripping into and killing mercilessly when he'd fed. Worse than any newborn vampire ever was. But no, he hasn't gone hunting. He had the luxury of the comfort of his home after all! And a willing participant.

Her tongue clucks against the roof of her mouth as Olivier's silence answers. Oh, heavens. Taking a step forward, she's put their disagreement from their mind for now and accepts the glass (oh, wasn't he clever) for the not-apology that it was. After a sip, eyes still traveling up and down Tony, she continues soft.  
  
"Actually - all you interrupted was his being forced to repeat the world 'girlfriend' at me - so never fear."  
  
She cocks an eye at Tony, slipping a finger back into her mouth and sucking idly on it.

"My attention's still all yours."  
  
"He is quite fond of that word, huh?" He smirked and looked at Olivier briefly, his eyebrows clearly speaking how he was so looking forward to telling Dani all about this, and then looked back to Chantel, but maybe he shouldn't have. Her mouth was closed around a blood stained finger, licking and sucking. The allure and attraction therefore, as he wet his lips, was quite natural.  
  
"I bet you say that to all the hybrids," he teased with another wiggle of his eyebrows as he reached for the bottle again.  
  
No, Olivier hadn't taken Tony hunting. Still with his hand squeezing his brother's shoulder, he adds as he pats, drily, "Both been a bit preoccupied, with Stef, see."

It was a biting remark, but Chantel only chuckles, "lucky girl" and sips the bourbon he'd given her.

Yes, they had been. Any hope of possibly having it easier after the Death Eater's downfall was extinguished with having to take care of a newborn vampire. Well and having to train a newly-made Hunter and apparently his brother's employees were being arrested. Tony just wished Blanc could have stayed in prison, might have done him some good. Restraining a roll of his eyes as Olivier lets go of his shoulder only to step closer to him, Tony instead looks past him, his eyes still fixed on Chantel. Especially after his subtle comment that he couldn't help but to include over his ability to age seems to have touched a nerve more than he intended. Oops, clearly not his intention; they'd have to practice good cop/bad cop later.

As his hand falls back to his pocket from his brother's shoulder, he finds himself taking a preemptive step forward. Yeah, Tony would hate it. Yeah, it was him being the protective older brother and he wasn't supposed to do that anymore but - sue him, goddammit, the instinct was ingrained.  
  
"You don't have to be shy, cheri." Chantel drawls on the matter of, still running her finger on her lip, eyes fixed to his cheeks as if he was blushing. "It's a compliment, after all."  
  
Despite the words being warm, for an instant Chantel was cold in every way that mattered: her demeanor makes it obvious in stiff limbs, pale skin and darkening eyes it was her answer to his being oh-so-proud of his ability to age. And what a kind, generous answer it was too, considering the gravity of the slight. (She couldn't be sure why it was she'd spare him, except for the fact that he was Rem's son - and if that wouldn't have mattered so much to her lost friend, then having to kill Olivier on top of it would have).

As abruptly as her visage shifted, it shifts back, saying cheerily, "He is."  
  
Oh, hell. Olivier took one look at Tony's face and realized Daniella was going to get an earful if he didn't find her first. With a little groan under his breath he reaches for the bottle himself, answering his brother with his eyebrows as if to just repeat the earlier, sardonic, sarcastic 'thanks, bro' tutto l'amore. He takes a sip. Well. Gulp. Then says easily, "Still trying to wrap my mind around the luck, frankly."  
  
"How adorable." Chantel echoes, looking back at Tony - as if she'd taken her eyes from him, any part of him, for long. Quite adorable, he agreed with an easy nod of his lips as they moved on from the subject of his blushing cheeks (please, as if he ever blushed, Stef had the memory of maybe the last time he had, but it was a memory she was quickly losing, okay new topic).

Moving to her thumb and smirking as she watches Tony's eyes trace her lips now, she chuckles. "All? Oh sure, all of them, let's see." She looks to Olivier, asks once, "Did I say it to you?" and barely lets him be past the head-jerk.

"There, then." Her eyebrow wiggles as she raps the almost-clean nails against the crystal. Her eyes rivet to his; call it boredom, call it amusement, call it whatever you like.

"All of them. Well, all the living ones who survived."  
  
That, makes Olivier pause over the bottle lip, before he realized: the ritual couldn't have been specifically invented for them. So were they not the first, just the first success, then? Damn her: she could see his interest, even as he took a sip and hands the bottle back to his brother, apparently disinterested.  
  
"Don't I feel special," he remarked with another smirk, tearing his gaze momentarily to look at Olivier, knowing that last comment about the successful hybrids would interest him in particular. As if they didn't need another distraction, honestly. He was glad to have the bottle back in his hands.

She was curious to see the ways the brothers stepped in protectively around each other, especially considering the timeliness of it with her comments. Ah, well, of course. The first time she'd seen Tony in the last eight years had been at Stefanie's side of course; clearly his newly-minted strength had done nothing to relieve him of his hypocrisy or masochism. Poor boy. Chantel had come today for two reasons (neither of which had included the brother's manhandling, but that had been oh so fun): to check on Stefanie, and see if there was anything from the possibility of the turning-at-will wolf pack. Now she was watching Tony drink, and the smirk crossing her lips was wide.  
  
"You should." Feel special, that was.

Cheeky, as his newly-made English friends would say. But he couldn't say otherwise, he was flattered at some base level and despite his anger, annoyance, and growing yet latent hostility, he knew angering Chantel further was bad news. It was a caution his brother hadn't been taking apparently but why would he? He's king after all.

"Should I leave you two alone, then?" Olivier quips. Like hell, he was leaving his brother here with her alone.

He still licked his lips as he looked in Chantel's direction.

"Well she has said her attention is fully on me now brother, not to be rude of course, but I do believe you've become the odd man out." Tonio took a hearty drink, arching his eyebrows over the top of the bottle before dropping it from his lips.  
  
"But I could hardly kick the capo out of his own office, I might wake up with a horse's head in my bed."  
  
He scoffs, hand moving to at least hide his bloody chest until he could properly fix the little wounds; he repaired the shirt with a hand wave and ignored a hiss in his throat at the ache in his shoulder moving his arm that way. Now he turns back, eyes riding.  
  
"Oh, not a horse head." Olivier agrees even as he discards that, amused. "I do have some originality, fratello."

"Well I couldn't let him have all the fun, amour," he added easily after sparing a brief chuckle as his brother commented he had much more originality. That much was true, even if Olivier still fell victim to cliches every once in a while. Jealous of his brother, though?  
  
He hadn't felt jealousy over him in a long time.  
"I'm just returning the favor, cheri, as - you did seem to have every attention paid to me when you came in. Jealous I was with your brother?"  
  
Again he scoffs, though it was half because he was still turning around in his mind the idea they might not have been the first hybrids to exist; half because he'd just discovered the other tear in his sleeve, around his gold cufflinks. Oh, dammit. He wouldn't trust magic to fix how those had gotten tangled; he'd have to have Teresa do it later. Rubbing at the back of his neck, he freezes when he hears Chantel step forward - in a blink in front of his brother again.  
  
Chantel tilts her head, searching his eyes: they were still going wild, haywire in fact, and had more emotion in them than she knew quite how to parse through. Eyebrow arched, she ask.

"Or was it for Stefanie?"  
  
"Don't," Olivier said, too quickly. She knew she'd touched a nerve there, and lets out a tiny, high-pitched giggle.

Oh hello. Thank god she hadn't chosen to come up behind him otherwise the bottle now leaving his lips after he'd taken another swig, would have made contact with Chantel's head and then so much for good cop/bad cop.  
  
The smirk only grew as she brought up Stefanie and he had to remind himself of the restraint he'd been so successfully practicing.

"Don't what Olivier?" He asked even as he kept looking into Chantel's eyes. "It's a valid observation after all. But unfortunately mistaken, ma cheri. Seeing you in your entire glory," holding a knife to my brother's neck, "well, I couldn't help myself. I'm a slave to my own desires."

A valid observation, right. A valid observation that he was sure had his brother's heart racing and his head spinning - a valid observation that he was only too aware had upset his brother more than anything else had in a long time. Not the least bit because he knew Tony continued to blame himself.  
  
But what could he say? Don't upset him? Don't bring up the thing he's so guilty over that was actually your fault. Stop hitting him, that's what he felt he was really saying. Stop hitting my little brother, I won't let you. (If he said that aloud, Tony would hit him.)  
He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out the old silver flask his brother'd given him for his seventeenth birthday, only to find it was, regrettably, empty. It reminded him he needed to ask Harper how his constantly refilled.  
  
So he shakes his head slowly and says only, "Well, in that case, far be it from me to attempt to restrain you." His hands itch for the bottle but as he wouldn't take it from his brother, he says instead (a "valid observation"), "Was just returning the favor - you'd done it for me for so many years."  
  
His heart rate was as wild as those gorgeous, darkening blue eyes that had her pierced. She wasn't an idiot; she knew Tony was lying placating her. Rather, she knew he thought he was. He might even have been aware of his natural attraction, but he considered it something unnatural (ironic, no?). He didn't know he wasn't lying; he was still torn between his two natures, considered one the "bad" part of him and one the "good" part of him.  
  
"A slave?" She questions, eyes not lifting from his, not blinking. "Funny." Her hand has lifted to his neck and she clucks her tongue against the roof of her mouth; again whispering in words only for Tony's ears now that his brother was far enough away (in search of more alcohol, it seemed).

"All those years ago you asked me to help him, and now you're the one who needs to be set free."  
  
That was true. He'd been trying to keep his brother restrained ever since he had seen him lose control for the first time and tear that man limb from limb at the age of fifteen. He didn't do a good job of it though. There was very little that Tony was particularly adept at and almost all of them involved the use of his body. Now he was the one with the restraint problems. "Hope you're better at it than me," he commented with an idle, hopefully not bitter smirk, only looking at Olivier briefly before turning his gaze back to this...fury.  
  
Furies were of course agents of vengeance and that was precisely the part Chantel was playing at the moment. An agent of her maker, Marcus in his long-in-the-making-evil-master-plan. Well, at least that's what Olivier suspected and truthfully, Tonio was only too inclined to agree.  
  
Her fingers were cooler against his skin than Stefanie's. Maybe it was because the older a vampire was, the colder their skin because they didn't feed as much because they didn't need to. Maybe it was just because his anger had turned into literal heat in the atmosphere of the room. Either way, he didn't move away from the touch or flinch even knowing that if she sunk her nails deep enough she'd cause some damage. He'd give something to werewolves, they were a lot more durable than him. Someone tried to snap his neck, he'd die.  
  
Or they would.  
  
As Chantel reminded him of what he'd asked for at his wee age of 17 (he didn't want to remember being that scrawny), Tony pursed his lips and wet them again. She did have a point, even if it was only a partial one.  
  
"Yeah I heard all about how you helped him," he replied with another smirk and then raised his free hand to run his knuckles against her shoulder. Still cold.  
  
"Forgive me if I'm not eager to be the seconds you come back to after dinner."

See, he knew there was another bottle in here. D'Grey men never were far from their bourbon, were they? Still, as he fiddles with the cap listening to his brother, his brows and nose wrinkle. At this moment, besides the obvious, he was actually craving for a dark, red wine. The darker the better. Or maybe he could mix the two...  
  
No, he didn't want to do that. Control was a daily battle for him. One that was growing worse considering their house guest and his brother. Though he meets Antonio's eyes when he looks at him with a small smirk, he bites his tongue and says only,

"For once, brother. You're not as bad as you think."

Yeah, for once. He managed to keep the retort in his mouth, not letting his words leap off his tongue and take flight but instead swallowing them. Focus was becoming much more difficult to keep a hold of. He had already staved off the lust for blood earlier today, had almost let his temper get the best of him with Audrey, had listened to Stefanie defend him and yet not apologize all that he'd done at the same time, and had come into the room with the full intent of killing Chantel if necessary.

That famous proverb was horribly one-sided. The path to hell was paved with bad intentions as much as good ones. He might have told himself after that he'd done it for Olivier's sake but Tony would have killed Chantel for the simple enough reason that he wanted to (gee, didn't that sound familiar?)  
  
The bourbon would have to do for now. He tilts it back into the flask, pouring evenly as he discreetly wipes the blood off his shirt. It was true; the proof of it in this room right now. The first time he'd told his father what he did to the bastard who'd come after Tony, he'd been frightened of himself. Dad had been so thrilled, though, so proud: he didn't want to admit to that fear. (And Tony wouldn't have believed him: all Tony saw was him doing what Dad had done first.) That night, Dad invited him for a drink. Once he'd taken that taste...  
  
Olivier hadn't been able to stop; he'd reveled in the power, the feeling of invincibility, the strength, the speed, the senses. (Stefanie's own explanations would only serve to make him envious, so he'd carefully restrained from asking). For a year, at least, he'd hunted with Dad - studied every aspect he could, wanting to know how it was their father could choose to leave someone breathing. It was just common sense that it wasn't until you could choose to kill, that you could choose not to either. Oh, wasn't that funny though?

Really, the only D'Grey man who had any semblance of complete mastery on the subject of restraint had been Dad. Well done, Tony, he thought bitterly, once again, you're nothing like him.

(Olivier knew he was. Because there were times he enjoyed it.)  
  
Or had, anyway, until that beautiful, furious woman over there had stepped in one night - cleaned him up (well, held his throat until he passed out and then cleaned him up), and told him there were other pleasures to be found. Much more enjoyable than the moment of killing; much more...oh, sensual and enticing. He had been hoping before since Stefanie hadn't run after learning the secret...  
  
Now he had to worry any time they were in a room alone. Two out of control helped neither of them, and it didn't matter how much blood they drank: he and Tony were still vulnerable. Another shot of the bourbon disappears down his throat. As his gullet revolves around the burn, Olivier thinks, it was Tony's hatred of it that kept me from murder plenty of times. His brother didn't know that. Anymore than his brother knew he'd stopped completely by the time he visited him at college. His hunger had been satiated and, well. (He knew Tony wouldn't come home if it hadn't been.) It was partly because of the woman over there, who was grazing her fingernail down his brother's cheek.  
  
Olivier decidedly says nothing, but as he's not leaving them alone, he sits in the chair and picks up journal and pen once more. Dammit. He wants another clementine too.

Olivier sat down, she hears, as he plants himself in a leather chair she must have seen Remington in a hundred times with the brooding, rueful smirk of one saying 'oh, don't mind me, you won't even know I'm here.' She thinks, if it wasn't for that girlfriend he kept harping on about, she'd almost believe he wants to join.  
  
Ah well. Another time. Truthfully, much as she'd been fond of the boy, she couldn't help but notice his shifts in behavior since her departure. On the one hand, he was...meaner. Quicker to cruelty, at least when his strings were tweaked just right. On the other, she was fully aware of how differently he'd been running things now without his father and she knew Olivier well enough to know he hadn't lied. Yes, the memory of his brother had helped Olivier restrain his hunger eventually. Not fun for her, see. Boring.  
Antonio on the other hand...

Now as he kept his hand moving absently as he watched her lips move and occasionally caught a glimpse of her finger in his line of vision, he didn't want to kill Chantel. Like he'd said before, he was a slave to his desires and right now his desire for the blood on her body was blurring with a possible desire for her to a point where he couldn't tell which was which. Tony only knew that there was a part of him disgusted by it all, a very large part but not as predominant as it might have been a few weeks ago.  
  
Tony wasn't sure where his brother was anymore, couldn't hear where he had gone as he breathed in and out, his control over his heart which had been so helpful before, during his reunion with Chantel was non-existent.  
  
My was Tony's heart beating a million miles an hour. It seems to thrum through the very bloodstream his knuckles graze. Her eyes stay locked on his, searching the darkening blue as she chuckles at the back of her throat.

"Oh did you? All the little details? And you're going to tell me, you're not even the," she breathes out as his hand grazes back and forth, "tiniest bit curious? I can't imagine Stefanie's any fun yet. Virgins are always so messy..."  
  
Cocking an eyebrow slowly up at him, her thumb moves to trace his lips now as she hums her reply. She licks at her bottom lip before retorting with ease, "Now wait one moment, Monsieur D'Grey. Why shouldn't we be modern? I'll take you out for a bite," her eyes gleam on the word, thumb tucking between his teeth. Most of the blood was gone, but there was a light stain all the same.  
  
"Long before we had dessert."

It was ironic that a woman born a century or so ago was the one advocating to be modern. It made him smirk, which opened up his mouth just enough to tuck her thumb into his mouth. His tongue swiped the pad of it as a reaction, nipping at the skin with teeth before pulling his head back, even if his feet remained planted.

The only thing that did manage to snap him back, even if just for a moment was the jab at Stefanie, which wasn't that foul to begin with and which he knew she could have easily defended herself against (especially now, as she was so fond of reminding him).

"Your imagination must be quite limited then, because far from it."  
  
And now, she does speak to Olivier, though her eyes never leave Tony's.

"You don't mind, do you D'Grey? If we went out to eat? I'd invite you but see, your girlfriend probably wouldn't like that."

How exactly did one go about refusing this? He really was a virgin about this, a very insecure and coerced virgin under the influence of drugs who couldn't find a way to say no despite wanting to because they felt like it was something they should do. Tony was about to be date-raped by a century old courtesan vampire.  
  
"Gotta bring me home before midnight, otherwise I turn into a pumpkin."


	30. Jello

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes and sulk at the presumptive retort, she's placated by the fact his teeth suddenly clamp down on her thumb. They were blunt tips, sure, which could make even more of a mess than a virgin - but as Tony was both, brava bravissimo for the spectacle. It excites her, really. Virgins were just so much fun to play with. And Tony's got those eyes - those blue, to-die-for eyes - opened wide and wild as he's seduced by temptation as much as he's repulsed by it. There was a kind of innocence there she loves, despite the fact they were anything but. He really was just a boy, she thinks. Scared and assertive to spite it, as only little boys were when confronted by their nightmares. Filled with fire that they're hoping you won't notice is mostly smoke.  
  
It's delicious.  
  
And it's even better when she's already aware he's in free fall...and doesn't particularly want anyone to catch him. Does he know that? She suspects part of him does. The part of him that got angry when his brother would step in - the part of him bitter. No. Antonio wants to catch himself, and he's sure he can't. There's something addicting about a man who sabotages his own happiness and still endlessly yearns for it. Something human and assuring. Then again, Chantel had always had a soft spot for the ones with eternal struggles, the ones who were wrong even when they were right.

(Maybe she relates).

They had an audience, she realizes abruptly.

Olivier opened his mouth, but his brother beat him as he ever and always did to the response. It was the opposite one of what he expected, and that was enough to give him pause. (Well. "Pause." As if he hadn't stood immediately again, as if he hadn't made a conscious effort not to dart across the office.) Chantel thought too much of herself if she thought she could handle both of them at once. She thought too much of herself, period, dangling blood like that. (His, he remembers at the back of his mind and has to take the moment to 'eugh' internally at the thought that his brother was now tasting it.) She might have a century on them, but if Remington couldn't--  
  
Ah, right. The one downfall to his masterful job hiding that particular secret. That, and Tony's own masterful denial of his last name half his life. No one knew to be afraid of his brother the way they were afraid of him. It irks him, though he knew Tony might be offended by his irritation. No, she could not just take his brother, not that he was his keeper (he was as much as Tony was his). No, she did not get to toy with him and treat him like a fish on a hook Tony had the right to make his own choice about this. And besides, he already had: his brother had said he would go hunting, but with him, not Chantel.

And why shouldn't he, with someone he trusted?  
  
Olivier can remember a time when he trusted Chantel, but never with his brother. (He didn't trust anyone with his brother, sometimes least of all himself.) And besides. That was a different time. Dad was in charge. Chantel was genuinely helping him. Now, even if that's what she thinks she's doing (and she probably did) what, was he supposed to ignore that she was likely sent there by Marcus? There was another reason she was there. And if, God forbid, she was to go poking around their father's death when Tony was vulnerable--

He'd rip her apart, damnit, and damn the fact that Tony would hate him forever afterwards. It wasn't the lack of fear, though, that bothered him most looking at the pair of them...it was the lack of respect.  
  
But then, Chantel had never had much of that, had she? She had done much the same to him with his father in the room. Once she asked Remington if it was already to take Olivier hunting; now she asks him for Tony. It was uncomfortable for him now to realize he was playing that part now, and again he opened his mouth to interrupt - when he sees Stefanie tapping her fingernails against the bannister.  
  
Well, that explained why the balcony door was back open, though it didn't explain why she stayed out of sight.  
  
And as much as he didn't like leaving his brother for even a moment - he and Chantel were plenty occupied for the moment, and he slips sideways. One quick dart, and he was leaning against the railing too.

In low heat, "If you continue to spy on my brother -"  
  
"Hello to you too." Stefanie says cooly, unabashed. Her nail was sharp as it toys with a blond strand.  
  
"- you won't be welcome in this house much longer." That, at least, Olivier makes sound like a promise. (No, he couldn't, and he knew it: Tony wouldn't let him banish Stefanie even if he'd truly wanted to do it.) Stefanie seems to know this, judging by the glint in her blue eyes. She hadn't turned around - her gaze were fixed through the glass on the pair - and she wasn't flustered by his threat.  
  
"He went because I heard she had a knife to your neck."  
  
Blunt, Olivier thinks, taking another swig of the flask. Oh, great to know he was still being protected so fiercely, really. His nose wrinkles up as he hears a shift in Stefanie's voice when she continues; a taunt, but a genuine emotion behind it.  
  
"He went into a dangerous situation, impulsively and without preparation, because of something I said - "  
  
"I wish that was shocking."  
  
"Maybe I was worried about him." She ignores his sassy, side comment. Thank God for small favors, he thinks. Olivier looks sideways at her. He only needs the moment to know she was serious. It was good he didn't need two; by the end of the second breath Stefanie was through the door.

Tossing her curls over her shoulder to grant his methodic caress more room to her neck, she inhales. Deeply, intoxicated by his rabbit-fast heart and the whiskey-sharpened scent. She thinks of the clementine, only this time it's a blood-orange, again as he releases her finger and she chuckles. It's dry, but her mouth was wet with her tongue.  
  
"If you're going to defend a woman because you know she's listening, you might want to be a bit more convincing than that. But cheri, you turn into the pumpkin yourself?" Just once, she bats her eyelashes at him, asking casually, "You're Cinderella's carriage? Honey, you shouldn't spend all your time carrying this princess around."  
  
"Mm." Stefanie stood with her arms folded, head tilted, eyes crimson. There was anything but amusement in her voice as she continues, "And, which are you in this scenario? My footmen, the fat rat?"  
  
Chantel just rolls her eyes, but her hand, the one she hasn't cleaned at all, wraps around Tony's wrist. Her nail sticks there in a mix of sweat, clementine, and blood.  
  
"Desolé, cheri but you see, we were just leaving."  
  
"Really?" Stefanie's voice was high, eyes narrowing. "I didn't hear Tony express any kind of enthusiasm for this little...private hunting trip."  
  
"He didn't." Chantel nods, eyes flashing with her amusement and lack there-of, "Verbally."

"Oh - "

Tony barely registered her comments that indicated he understood his reference quite perfectly and knew how to add on to it. At any other occasion that would have granted Chantel a few points in his book but not right at that moment. His fingers had been moving towards her neck he realized only when he moved them away on hearing Stefanie's voice. They'd been soft and firm, tracing the line of her artery and in the knee-jerk reaction had even pressed before lifting; the sudden knowledge of someone standing behind him. Stef really needed to stop doing that.  
  
He turned sideways to have both of them in their line of sights, unsure to what beat his heart was dancing to at this moment with both of them in the room. When they had all been together last time, he had pretended to immediately lose interest in Stefanie to continue looking at Chantel. Now he felt like a ping pong ball, his gaze going back and forth, trying not to miss anything.  
  
He feels the hand around his wrist and he's halfway to looking at it before he realizes the warm stickiness is blood. Once he'd get that in his sights again, Tony wasn't sure what would happen. But he was sure what would if he didn't say anything right now. Taking his hand back, and keeping it out of his sights, he stepped more in between them now (as if they couldn't just swat him away and continue if they wanted).  
  
"Alright, alright, if you're going to fight, at least do it in a ring of jello?"

A jello ring? Madonna mio, sometimes, fratello but Olivier says none of this from his spot near the (shut) balcony door. By nature, they were all creatures of bloodlust and carnage in this room and yes, okay, he can't deny that the catty, tiresome insults and wit between Chantel and Stefanie at that moment aside it was an arousing image. Them torturing the other, his ex-lover and the blonde bombshell, in a macabre way, he couldn't really imagine anything more disturbingly alluring.  
  
Oh, hold on, yep. Turned out he could. Daniella was now involved.

Tony found the smirk he had so easily been bringing up before escape him, everything was slipping from him right now, so he exhaled and then spoke again.

"Stef, I'm pretty capable of deciding what I do and what I don't want to do."

"My point exactly." She shoots that back instinctively, spine stiff as Tony looks at her. Her lips were screwed up in that pouty way that pushes her eyes together, but they were flashing blue. "You can choose."  
  
Was it hypocritical of her to say that now, when she'd been so adamant a few days ago on the porch that he was lying to himself? She suspects that's the case now as well, but there was another reason she'd retorted so quickly: so she doesn't have to think. Thinking was as sharp a knife as the one Olivier was palming behind her, as the pointed teeth aching to shove through her gums now. No, sharper. Hypocrisy was the tip of the ice berg, and she'd no intention of sinking or even clutching a door for hours in the ice.

"Because you're obviously the poster child on making choices, Stefanie," Tony replied with false cheer before he realized what he was saying. At least it was a phrase that could be easily misconstrued for specific instances not just a general all-encompassing statement. Might be enough to finally drive her to lunge for him like she'd been wanting to do to his wrist, covered in his brother's blood. This was turning into a 50 Shades of D'Grey novel.  
  
Except, not really, because Tony was a much better author than E.L. James.

"I'd be hot on any poster, but I'm no child." Stefanie mused aloud, hand still fidgeting with her skirt.  
  
He turned to look at Chantel and then spoke sense (when did that come back?).

"I promised Olivier I'd let him show me how." Wow. Lame. "Granted, now that you've put all these sexual connotations on it, not sure how eager I am anymore." He shrugs before his free hand absent-mindedly reaches for the bottle of bourbon he had left placed on the desk. He raises his finger after he has the bottle back in his hand again, clearly proving that the statement before was just a false positive statement about his logic and sanity, "Let's all go."  
  
He shook his head to clear the image, helped along by the sudden voicing of the fact at the back of his mind by a throaty gulp of his brother: his promise to be there when his brother went. Chantel he could trust to an extent but he didn't want to. And Stefanie? Oh no, the pair of them would do nothing to hold the other back.  
  
"Go together?"  
  
The scent, though - that was driving her mad, as Tony moves his hand behind his back. Still as a statue, Sterfanie unfurls her fingers around her forearm and stops breathing. Her voice was a little less smooth than she'd have liked, her gaze lingering on Tony's lips only to slide down the tantalizing flesh of his bare neck as she offers, genuinely.

"I thought blood brothers was a safety hazard...but that's sweet."  
  
The thing was, Stefanie was in no mood for these games or casual banter to begin with: what she wanted to do, really, was rip that little red-haired bitche's spine out through her throat (strange, a day ago she'd been her friend). And then sink her teeth into her -

"Go together?" Olivier echoes.  
  
Thank the old gods and the new that Olivier interrupts her, echoing what Tony said. And how had she missed that novel suggestion? She scoffs, hand freeing itself from her skirt to hang by her hip, fingers loose against the white sweater where it hugs her. She was itching now to graze them across his skin, see how he'd react, wondering what marks she could leave behind.  
  
Olivier continues, "And...when I find myself in the sheriffs office by mid morning explaining the massacre and blood-soaked orgy on a church altar?"  
  
"Then I'd say it was an enjoyable evening, wouldn't you?" Chantel answers at once, now lifting her freed wrist back to her mouth. Still, she was pouting in part because frankly: she didn't share. There was no shame in her admitting to herself that the image of stringing Tony along, vengeful and treacherous could be exciting.  
  
And as for safety hazard? Ha. It was probably the least hazardous thing right at this moment or rather in their entire life.  



	31. Trust

_I'll turn myself in,_ he almost said out loud. If it got to that point, to that point of total madness and there was a massacre in a holy church, the house of God, Tony would walk in and turn himself in, his brother be damned- oops, not the most sensitive choice of words at the moment. Actually, he was making one bad choice after another in the entirety of this conversation. Funny how it perfectly mirrored his life.  
  
She sighs, licking her wrist clean in one, long slow lick wit her eyes on Tony. But she says, "No, no...I wouldn't want to get between brothers. And besides, Antonio." She looks only once at Stefanie, amused as she realizes the younger vampire's trouble with ignoring the open scent of blood. When she looks back, a smirk curling on her lips and eyes dark with caramel shot through by lust, she finishes simply.

"I'm not too eager to be 'seconds' either."  
  
In a flash, she's on her toes to kiss his cheek, simply because she enjoys the flush she gets out of Olivier (she could imagine it was on Stefanie's face instead), and then back through the door behind Olivier, waving a kiss to Stefanie too.

Tony's gaze, frenzied and unable to focus on one person for long now lands momentarily on Chantel as she very plainly stated she didn't share. He was finding himself much more relieved than he thought he would, but also disappointed. God, he needed air, or bourbon, just a lot of bourbon.  
  
With a kiss to his cheek that lingered near his lip and a wave, she was gone and Stefanie was moving towards him, or rather about to lunge towards Tony. Before Olivier could blink, Stefanie had moved forward but before she could take his brother's wrist, he had it, anticipating the move. His hand meets her chest, pushing her back and he shakes his head at her, saying blunt, fast, hard,

"Downstairs. You know where."

The blood-bags, he meant, though Stefanie glares at him. Olivier knew perfectly well there'd been blood on Chantel's lip when she kissed him - that it languished on her tongue, and flicked across Tony's bottom lip. And he knew perfectly well that unless he separated them now, she and Tony would be ripping each other apart (and likely their clothes would only be the first casualties).  
  
Stefanie was gone in a blink from the harsh hit, but he only tugs Tony's wrist back refusing to let him go after her, if he could help it. At least it was his own blood. For all the hunger pounding through his veins, he wasn't quite so narcissistic enough to lose control at the scent of his own.  
  
He took a step forward as well only to be stopped as Olivier pushed Stefanie back. Tony breathed in and breathed out as he watched her leave and then found himself being tugged back by his brother's hand on his wrist. Olivier was relieved that his brother moved away from him, but not towards the door that Stefanie left temptingly open in her wake. I'd be hot on any poster, but I'm no child, she'd said under her breath before fleeing, but he couldn't help but think she continued to prove the opposite.  
  
(Though maybe he didn't have any right to judge).

Gritting his teeth together, he tugged his wrist back and then summoned a rag to start wiping off the blood quickly, hands a little unsteady.

"Don't," he began preemptively, his eyes looking up to the ceiling, "whatever it is you're thinking of saying, don't."

Olivier's eyes were tracking his brother's movements, back teeth clamped down as he cleaned himself of blood; too busy being worried for his brother's sake and control to spare his hunger another thought. It was his one blessing, he thinks, though he remembers at the back of his mind that there were two humans in the house apart from their usual maids and servants and guards two humans he was going to have to trust Stefanie to avoid en route. (But then again, maybe he just really, really didn't want Audrey and Tony in a room right now: he didn't fancy keeping them from killing each other. Olivier didn't have a stellar track record at such things.)

His eyebrows jump up. "Don't?" The echo was incredulous, hesitant and a little unsure. Truthfully, he hadn't been thinking of saying anything in particular except oh, well, yes. He did rather think they should be at a club prontissimo. Taking a step after his brother, Olivier arches an eyebrow, voice hot, but measured.

"Okay. Tell me what's going through your mind, then."

Tony was better at talking than he was anyway.  
  
Tony chuckled incredulously, shaking his head and then quickly bringing the towel to his mouth to clean it off before throwing the whole thing into the unlit fireplace that with a snap of his fingers was roaring to life.  
  
"Well, let's see," he reached for the bottle again, started chugging as much of it as his throat could bear. Gasping when he finally couldn't take anymore and wiping a tear from his eye from the burn, he began.

Something odd was stirring in Olivier's chest as he listened, tilts his head as if his ear was being tugged on by an invisible lanyard roping him to his pacing, bottle-downing brother. He stands contrarily perfectly still. It would be an understatement to say he wasn't out for blood himself to see his brother so upset, a monstrous clawing in his chest he squashes by refusing it oxygen. Sweat, too, thick was dripping from the back of his neck. He feels sick, and it had nothing to do with the scars on his chest.  
  
"I think you need to reevaluate your definition of the word 'friend' if this how they treat you and you treat them," Tony turned and then sat down on the desk to keep from pacing but the restlessness didn't go away. His fingers tapped against the mahogany wood as he kept talking.  
  
Was Chantel a friend? He thinks she might have been, once, but since her return to France he was too aware she might be spying on him for Marcus. Maybe he hopes it's the case. Then he could ignore their friendship in peace, and it meant Stefanie definitely wasn't. The woman he'd known as a young girl might want to be all in-control of her destiny, but he'd think kinder of her to be a pawn in this matter than think she intended on reporting anything to her ill-begotten sire. He bites down on his tongue.  
  
Olivier liked finer things, to live this life of royalty as he knew he of course, deserved, but it came with a different definition of friend as it always had. So, perhaps his brother was right. Perhaps she wasn't a friend of his.  
  
"She was my friend." He says, toying with the button on his jacket, feeling the rage ill-quelled curl in his chest. "But she'd rip my heart out, if she knew I have every intention of doing the same to Marcus. That isn't a friend."  
  
Just as Harper Brackner, for all he enjoys his company, wasn't truly his friend either: Harper was too intelligent to trust him, D'Grey knew. That was why he'd treated him the same. It was better to have Harper owe him one than some false sense of friendship and camaraderie as if he disappointed the scientist, he'd be too quickly betrayed. In fact, he thinks he can count on one hand the amount of people he would genuinely call friend, aside his brother. One was a werewolf without a pack, one was a vampire the pair of them were giving 'sibling rivalry' an entirely new definition. Two of them were fifteen year old girls. And...Daniella.  
  
Whatever she was. That was a headache he couldn't deal with at the moment.

Right, because that made everything just so much better. He kept his initial reaction to himself and was glad that he had. Olivier realizing she wasn't his friend was a pretty good step up. Now if Olivier could just see that the men like Blanc that he hadn't allowed to get arrested that day against the Death Eaters weren't his friends either...  
  
Well his brother already knew that didn't he? Olivier hadn't saved them from jail because they were his friends, he had saved them because they would be loyal to him. Loyal subjects to clean up whatever mess the Death Eaters had made of his kingdom.  
  
Yeah, it was a good thing he kept his mouth shut. The bloodlust combined with annoyance and rising anger would have been too much to handle and blows would have probably been traded and this time there was no Claude to get in the middle of it.  
  
(But there was another hunter in the house, one that'd be torn to pieces if he got in the middle.)

"I'm thinking it'd be a lot easier to tell Chantel to fuck off if I didn't want to fuck _her_." Tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap.

Olivier cocks an eyebrow up higher and says instead, "I know what I can trust about her, and Chantel did have a point."

Memories had run over his mind in a flash: burning intimacy, toying with meals, succulent tastes and indulgence. His tongue flicks across his lower lip as he reminds himself it was Tony he needs to focus on.  
  
"She's...lush." Nothing like coiffed and well-fed courtesan aristocrats to feed his inner snob. "But genuine in two things at least: that she views her species superior, so she'll protect it, and she pays her debts."  
  
Aha, there we go, he thought of something as he finally moves, slipping his flask back into his back pocket. Eyebrows popped he offers, "She's a Lannister."  
  
Tony snorted, annoyed to hear that Chantel was right about anything, he didn't want to hear that. The woman had taken Stefanie to Marcus to be turned. Maybe after he fucked her it'd be easier to kill her.  
  
...What, in the hell, was wrong with him?  
  
"Lannisters don't play well with Starks, even bastard ones. No wonder," he muttered after another scoff and rubbing his lips absently.

Was his brother calling him a Stark? Or...no, Tony was saying he was Jon Snow. Huh. Jon and Cersei, now there was an interesting dalliance to consider. (He didn't question which parent his brother viewed was the Targaryen). Lips flicking up, he nods to let it pass.

"I'm thinking I have no chance of keeping up with her or you or even Stefanie anymore, not when I can't control myself and especially not when they pull on a leash," he tugged at the collar of his shirt (Christ, it was hot in here), "and all I do is follow."  
  
He breathed in and out in silence for a few moments before he added, "I'm also thinking Devin and that judge-y little capital B witch need to get the fuck out for their own sakes," now he tilts his head as he continues that train of thought. "Now I'm thinking that Claude's a stupid shit if he really thinks I'm in any fit state to mentor a kid."

Breathe in and breathe out, tap-tap-tapping along. "I'm thinking Stefanie!" he raised his voice, noticing that the door was still open, "is acting like a fickle brat!  
  
He agrees mentally, but he knows Audrey would waste no time in seeing herself out. After replacing flask with phone, and sending Devin a quick message ("Unexpected guest - Sincere apologies, if you could just see yourself out"), he puts that away too. And yes. Yes, Stefanie was acting like a spoiled brat.  
  
"She's a mental toddler," he nods. A mental toddler who watched someone try and take her toys. "Who was worried when you ran here. I might have more sympathy if I wasn't sick of watching you be toyed with."

"Maybe she shouldn't have told me about the knife to your neck then," Tony muttered that as well before he started frowning again as Olivier expressed Tony was just being toyed with. It wasn't entirely off the mark after all, Tony himself did liken himself to a dog on a leash. Maybe he should have better described it as a dog seeing a piece of steak being waved around his face. Tongue lolling out, panting, licking the air and waiting, anticipating, on his hind legs.  
  
Olivier stops when his brother goes for the bottle again. Face hard, he waits.

And!," he added with a raised finger, finally standing up again after the incessant tapping of his fingers that was starting to annoy even him, "I'm thinking I'm really thirsty, fuck." Now he chugged as he paced around the room. He probably wasn't done talking (he was never done talking) but it was difficult to talk when you were swallowing liquid fire without a reprieve down an already raw throat.

Watching the drink go down, down, down, Olivier mutters low, "Only, none of that matters right now."

Because his brother was right - he was thirsty, and that bottle wasn't going to cut it. Because Chantel was right, just as she had been for him: Tony did need to experience this, and he needed to learn how to hunt. Because Stefanie was, when she pointed out Tony had to make the choice on his own.  
  
"You trust me?"  
  
His eyes flash onyx. His voice was hard as the stone, and he'd asked the question in Italian. If I have to rip you off of them, Tonio, I won't let you kill anyone but you can't avoid this anymore, his eyebrows finish for him.  
  
His gaze drifted back up to his brother at his statement then question, his wild eyes finally managing to focus enough. Blue gave way to the black of his pupils as he answered him back in Italian.  
  
"With my life." Though maybe, he thinks, not with your own. That was alright though, that was what Tony was for.  
  
There was violence, savage in Tony's eyes, overwhelming, but it passed too as he listened to the small question. Maybe he didn't need to ask. He knew his brother did. He just wanted Tony to hear himself say it. Remind his brother that if he couldn't trust himself a feeling Olivier knew too well he could trust Olivier.  
  
It was already destroying Tony, ripping him apart from the inside, the wants he'd had warring. All he wants is for that to stop. He wants his brother to be a semi-functional hybrid at least as much as he felt he was. It made for a better life, the ability to have a tumbler full of blood and just go to sleep. He knew if Tony hurt another soul right now, he'd never forgive himself just as he hadn't forgiven himself for Marcel, for Emily. For Dad. Olivier almost says it - and then thinks...unless he could tell Tony he forgave him for that, mentioning Dad right now would only make things worse. And he didn't forgive him, not really.  
  
(He'd accepted months and months ago Tony didn't need forgiveness for doing nothing wrong.)  
  
He looks up, relieved to see more blue in his brother's gaze as he repeated he did. Lifting his hand to Tony's shoulder, he squeezes again, but his head shakes.  
  
"I know. But I need you to trust me with more than that. I mean, do you trust me, to show you how to do this? That it won't hurt them at all is a fairytale - teeth ripping flesh involves an 'ouch' factor - but I swear on the Madonna herself, I'm not going to let you...become a monster."  
  
Olivier pauses, but he speaks quickly over the breath, like he didn't want to admit why that word still bothers him.

 _With more than that?_ Tony frowned momentarily, not being able to comprehend with what else he was supposed to trust his brother with. Somebody else's life? Well, he trusted him with Stefanie's life (oh but, sorry, they weren't allowed any influence over that; he restrained another scoff) and maybe with those Olivier really considered friends.  
  
A stranger's life though, an innocent person's? Now, after his brother admit he wanted to stop hurting people, he did. There had been a time however, one he was ashamed about, in which he thought the worst of Olivier. When it came to his feeding with Remington?

But he really didn't need to think about that man right now.  
  
"It's not your life I'm talking about, Tony." His own blue eyes were pierced through with something akin to desperation, but he'd never say that. "It's your..."  
Ha.  
  
"Soul."  
  
No, he didn't know if he believed they had one, but Tony did. Olivier knew it was important to his brother that he at least try to fight for it, and the word summed up the thought nicely. The thought was: I'm not going to take you out of here just to watch me become everything you hate. I'm not doing that again. But it was too self-serving to say aloud.  
  
(I won't turn you into Dad, that wasn't self-serving, but it was too pathetic, because what he means is: _I won't let you become me._ )  
  
And then Olivier explained himself and Tony found himself understanding with widening eyes. Apparently he had a soul today! Always an issue up for debate with his brother. But did he trust his brother not to let him become a monster (like Tony had called their father, like he'd also called Olivier that one ill-fated day outright and implied for years before)?  
  
He already was one.  
  
"I trust you," he repeated, meaning it wholeheartedly. "Yes."

With my soul, whatever state it's in at this moment.  
  
The look on his brother's face as he understands the widening eyes, the half open mouth unnerves him. Tony didn't think he worries about it. (Well, of course, why would he worry about that he didn't believe he had?) His mouth was dry, and not for once, with want. Or rather, hunger; he was wanting plenty. He wants his brother to trust him with this. Tony used to. Tony once looked up for him for everything. Only too aware what it was that made him lose faith, when he repeats that he does now, Oli has to tell himself he can believe it. His hand still on his brother's shoulder, he squeezes tightly and tries not to smile too widely at the acceptance... or at the thought of what they were going to do.

It was there again, burning, in his stomach; that old feeling of excitement, a glimmer of a spark, like the match is hovering above newspaper just itching to be lit. He was a hunter, born and bred but the thought he could show his brother he was...still shocks him to his core.

He felt himself growing in resolve with the squeeze on his shoulders and the clap on his cheek. Tony had been teased relentlessly by his casual friends growing up here in Paris on how much physical contact was common for Tony. He patted people's shoulders as they talked, elbowed their sides, poked their chest; Tony always just said it was an Italian thing. They responded with 'yeah man, fugget 'bout it' to continue teasing him.It was true though, that Tony sought a lot of his comfort physically. Stefanie had even said so and she hasn't known him very well for more than several weeks. But physically didn't necessarily mean sexual, and that's what was happening.

Olivier let's Tony's shoulder go with a small smile, then pats it once, twice, and then his cheek. Italian, to the last.  
  
"Bene," he says, though he means 'thank you' more than 'good', and his eyebrows say that for him. "Then we're going now. A club, not too far." He eyes his brother's clothes and then chuckles to himself. "I usually say I've just left the office but...you're already pretty dressed right, really." Adjusting his watch as he releases him, he cups his wrist and pulls back to summon his knife to him. Hilt first, he offers it to Tony, the blue cross familiar to them both. "The quicker, more precise the cut the better the flow. You want to be in control, Tony, that high, you're craving? It lasts longer."  
  
His voice was steady and soft, but now has the quality behind it as if it's paper, the same newspaper his stomach wants to light in the thrill. When he looks back as his brother's eye, he adds soft.

"I know. It's counterintuitive, to everything you've thought of as...well. Right. But it is natural, Tony. It is. You and I - we might have been born differently, but we were still born of this world, same as anything is."

Tony's gaze lifts, meeting his brother's. Almost immediately Olivier was proving to be able to somehow read his thoughts as he addressed the doubts in Tony's mind. Natural. They could argue about that for an eternity that they didn't have (at least, thank god), so instead Tony focused on the second part of that statement.

Olivier offers the knife to his brother, wishing his heart would stop pounding so damn loudly. As if his eyes weren't giving away how badly he wants his brother to understand. Tony nodded, finding himself able to stand straighter only to look down as Olivier says he's pretty dressed already for the club they were going. Relieved that at least he didn't have to find a way to keep his hands steady enough to change, he at least focused on the control his brother started speaking of as he outstretched the knife.  
  
A blue hilt, Olivier's favorite color, with a cross that held a blade made entirely out of silver. As far as he knew, Olivier had only given one of his knives to one other person and she'd been a seemingly defenseless teenager. He said seemingly because if Tony hadn't personally seen her bitch-slap and then bite a finger off a Death Eater, he would have thought her incapable of violence.  
  
Just went to show, no one was exempt from the cruelty of this world and you had to be prepared. Life sucks, get a helmet. Or a silver knife. What he was still having some problem accepting (apart from the whole rapist aspect of it all) was that he should make the longing last longer. Essentially, his brother was telling him to tease himself.   
  
He takes the knife in his right hand, nodding slowly and breathing even less often. Tony was still frantic in his eyes even as he was as subdued as he could be.  
  
 _I just want to be in control_ , he almost spoke but knew Olivier already all of that, and much more. _I just want to stop feeling empty already._  
  
"I'm ready," he speaks instead after swallowing on a dry throat.


	32. Shoshanna

Olivier nods once, then stops himself from nodding a second time. It wouldn't help for his brother to see him second guess. Tony'd never believe Oli was second guessing himself, not his brother. The first time he'd "gone hunting," as it was put to him (without the air quotes and with blasé disregard for the fact that it was the same thematic language as criminals), was with his father. Truth was, he'd spent half a month working up the courage to ask him to take him with him he hadn't been able to get Tony's face out of his mind.

It wasn't the disgust. (That made sense; until you experienced it yourself, of course ripping in to a person looked disgusting. No one asked cows to watch their friends be slaughtered.) He'd reasoned that out. (Though he still hates that Tony thought he'd been just a monster).  
  
No...it was the fear that stayed with him. His brother, newly fourteen year old little brother, he had looked so... scared of him. Olivier never wants Tony to look at him that way again. He wouldn't take him. If he didn't realize that Tony was giving himself the same look he gave Olivier at fourteen. Course. Tony wouldn't be dealing with this if he'd just stayed away. If I never asked him to help me, Olivier thinks. I owe him to show him he can feed, he can indulge, without...well. Being what he hates: one with total disregard for humanity and absolute gluttony. Thank God (ha!) he had two other vampires tutor him. When his face turned, he hides a small smile to himself.  
  
Ugh, so much drama! There was nothing wrong with this. Pulling apart his tie to hang loose with one hand, fetching wallet and wand with the other, he takes Tony's arm and disapparates them without another word. I'm ready, Tonio had said, and Olivier wouldn't second guess that.

Tony almost confronted Olivier about how much he seemed to be enjoying this: being the cool and knowledgeable older brother (again) and Tony the innocent (born again) virgin. Then Tony realized, Olivier would think he meant what was coming next, the feeding and that was the point. His brother was going to teach him how to enjoy it, how to control it and how not to kill anyone while doing it.

The small smirk still on his lips when they arrive on the street, Olivier has to pause to cock his brow and shrug to his brother.  
  
"You spent years trying to get me to uh--loosen up, right." He tilts his head, as if it were a question and doesn't bother to swallow his chuckle. "Romano's on the other foot, brother. Think," he lifts his hand, pointing at him, "that's what you have to do now. Vieni."  
  
Opening the door, immediately blasted by a warm blast of alcohol and sweat. His tongue flicks over his bottom lip as he holds it open for Tony and breathes deeply. "We're just going for a drink, brother." It was casual, offered with a smirk only raising in his voice too. "I'll even be your wingman tonight."  
  
Madonna does he hope that's the right slang. Olivier had no idea, and he was slightly distracted by the neon flashing and bodies behind them. Walking in after him, he steers them past the bouncer towards VIP with only a smirk and 'ciao Pierre.' The rope unbuckles for them at once, of course, but oh that never got old.

"If I knew there would ever come a time where you would tell me to loosen up...," Tony shook his head and then rolled his shoulders, trying to do just that. It was a club, like any other club, but probably a vampire club or maybe just an Olivier club. Pierre did recognize Olivier-the-wingman and direct them to the exclusive v.i.p instantly. Olivier did always love the recognition. Some time ago he had even been jealous for it. Members of the French elite spoke with a twelve year old Olivier as if he were their own family at one of the countless parties thrown in the manor; Tony instead got a 'and who are you again?'. Tony smiled briefly, shaking his head. If Olivier had identified himself as Remington's son, Tony had always identified himself as Olivier's brother.

It reveals a smaller red dance room, a round high table waiting for them. Walls buzzing with the vibrato, Olivier tugs under his ear, then rests. At ease, his eyes search the gathered small crowd from his brother's side.

"What's your poiso--oh!"  
  
The ginger-haired Galway girl recognized Olivier after a second, cheeks turning as red as her hair. Too busy thinking that the question after their poison was ironic, he doesn't hardly notice. "Ciao, Marina."

The club atmosphere, noisy, vibrating, and colorful, did a job of calming him down more than anything else so far. Apart from a few differences, a club was a club and Tony wasn't an amateur at that. But with women who wanted to be fed from, yeah, virgin.  
"Poison, very funny," he smirked after saying that before the redhead stepped forward.  
  
He replies with an easy smirk, hand lifting from his pocket as he leans towards her, resting on the small table. People like that, he knows. It made him look interested. "Is your sister feeling better?" Marina only colors more to hear the question, though she assures him she is. Olivier's lips twitch as he nods. "Glad to hear it...is she here tonight?"  
  
Now Marina was pouting, at least until he says with an arm twist to gesture at Tony's chest, "I was thinking of introducing her to my brother if you don't mind?"

The round green eyes shining at him tell Olivier she didn't, but her mouth catches up eventually and she slips away to find her. He turns to Tony when she does, fingers toying with a bottle cap on the little table. The pulsating music makes for easy cover to speak plainly. "Shoshanna, her sister?" He cocks an eyebrow at Tony.  
  
"You did say find someone with dubious consent fantasies."  
  
Not her, he was about to say, had enough redheads for one day, please and thank you. Standing next to his brother, he overheard their entire conversation though it wasn't a particularly chatty one. Mentions of a sister made Tony raise his eyebrows momentarily before reminding himself, he trusted Olivier with this. So he'd try this...Shoshanna with the dubious consent fantasies.  
  
"Yeah, I was mostly kidding that night, and I was drunk. I think." He was never totally sober on any night though.  
  
"What would she be feeling better from, exactly?"  
  
"Flu," Olivier shrugs, waving it off as he continues to fiddle with the coins. Gold flashes around his knuckle, back and forth, bumping his silver ring before he palms it. He learned how after watching "Captain Jack Sparrow" do it, he thinks mildly amused. When he meets his brother's eyes, he ignores if there was any suspicion there. If there was, Tony was likely right: it was easier to catch sicknesses when blood was drawn regularly. But hey, it was the freedom of Shoshanna's choice. Lord knew he didn't judge.  
  
"You're drunk most nights." He points out, meaning it more as a tease than anything. Tony had relaxed (his hands weren't shaking as badly, anyway), but Olivier was still watching carefully. This amount of people, bouncing and shaking and wiggling he was a little proud, to see his brother calm(er-ish). Made sense though: his brother was fully aware he would soon get precisely what he wanted. Now he's taut, not unlike a snake waiting to strike.

(Olivier wasn't even saying 'I told you so', he thought he should get brother points for that.)

"I am so overjoyed you didn't say aids or some kind of blood disease," he smirked because he didn't really know whether that mattered as even with his dalliances with vampires while undercover years ago, the subject had never come up. It made sense though, especially if they weren't boosting their immune system by taking iron supplements. Then again, if they were professional blood bags, that seemed pretty obvious.  
  
If Stefanie kept drinking from him, would he need to take iron supplements? Food for thought while he waited for the food for his...stomach, he supposed. Tony would have to ask Harper how his body took in the blood. Wouldn't be weirder than any of their previous conversations.  
  
"I'm tipsy most nights," he corrected, "drunk on only some." He chuckled at the little coin trick before decidedly looking elsewhere, his smirk becoming easier as he watched a pair of women dance provocatively before one took a shot off the others neck.

"Blood disease?" Olivier echoes, sardonic. Feigning indignation, he rests a hand on his heart saying lightly, "That your way of accusing me of poisoning you?"

"Just wanted to make sure there's no mutated Hep D in this universe," he joked with a sly grin. True Blood really had some fantastic story lines before they added all that fairy/time-skip shit into the show. Also, what a total waste of Lara Pulver.

"Hep--" It takes Olivier a second longer to realize his brother was referencing some show or movie. Blame the pleasurable warmth at the back of his throat, the amount of liquor in his flask he'd drained before they came.

"...What television programme am I being clueless about now?"

It was more likely television than movie from the way his brother said "universe"--unless it was a franchise, and he didn't think it was. Olivier had watched most of those by now: gone to see the new Star Wars with him as a teen. God...they'd been, what, twelve? Maybe thirteen?

"True Blood. And let me tell you," he raises his finger and wags it in his brother's direction. "I'm not entirely convinced it's not an accurate portrayal of supernatural activity in America's Deep South." That was mostly a tease though, because there was no way that existed. There were no Vampire kings or a Vampire Authority (now completely disintegrated thanks to Lilith the second: Operation Bill Compton) that they all answered to. They were nomads for the most part, few of them in established covens.  
  
He could just imagine the ego of a vampire king given how arrogant most of them already were. Shoot him now, or rather, shoot whoever that would be with one of Claude's magical destroyer bullets.

Ah, a different kind of suspicion then. If his brother wants to play... (and Madonna, does he hope that's true)...

Smirk twisting up as he tosses the coin around his fingers, he says casually, "Actually, sickle cell carriers, not those afflicted presently...it adds this property valine, makes it prone to breaking apart in a capillary, flow easier..." He tilts his head. The words were casual.  
  
"Delicious." Playing with his brother, he was, but that much at least was perfectly truthful. He wasn't going to lie to Tony: there were side effects, reasons he'd swapped to literal bags from hospitals (even though he'd taken to warming that up in the over because, eugh, much better at 98.6) reasons he had stopped altogether for a while. But it was possible, just as one could enjoy a fine wine most days and not wind up with liver damage (Tony was lucky already they didn't have issues with that.) Possible...and enjoyable, if his brother would stop being so judgmental. (Olivier knows that is tied together with his hatred of Dad, but gah - psych 101 issues were not going to help anyone right now).

As his brother continues to explain some blood disease that changed the taste, Tony's eyebrows rose and rose until he finally had to ask, "Are you fucking with me?" He wouldn't put it past Olivier to sound all scientific and precise about a pile of absolute bullshit; he did that nearly constantly.

"What?" Olivier feigns indignant surprise at the question, hand still patting his chest as if wounded. Then remembers...he kind of was. "I would never." Course, that made it seem like he had been, and he'd been perfectly serious if blunt. Ah well.  
  
"Sure," he smirked as Olivier professed to be above tricking him like that. Over something as important as this, no, Tony didn't think his brother capable but Olivier was his older brother after all and pulling his leg was part of the job description.

A smirk lifts his lips again as Tony agrees with him. Cupping his ear as he feigns not hearing him, he chuckles and drops his hand and coin back to the table.

"More than one way, really." He nods, eyes still agleam. If he wasn't going to stay with his brother when Shoshanna was found...he might look those girls up.

His eyebrow wiggles as he adds, "They are quite tied together." Both their lusts...and both the girls, who were now making out.

Olivier loved this bar.

He licks his lips briefly watching the crowd, then smirks: one blonde, had just had tequila tossed on her neck, her fellow blonde leaning to lick it off. Olivier's eyes gleam. Watching her, he comments idly, poking his brother with his elbow now.

"Appetizing, isn't it?" He jokes. (Mostly.)

But it was Tony; if anyone would appreciate poor taste jokes, it was his brother.

"Appetizing. Ha," he rolled his eyes before he shrugged. "Actually," he amended with a lick of his lips, "it is."

Tony's head then tilted as he began to smirk appreciatively, licking his lips once. He did like blondes. Bringing a hand up, he shh'ed his brother.

"Your voice is ruining the fantasy."  
  
Chuckling, he lifts a hand to his neck and pulls his tie looser still, trying to keep fabric from sticking in the as-of-yet healing claw-marks beneath his shirt.  
  
Making a show of 'shushing' when Tony tells him too, though he's half considering pointing out that reality would be so much better and they didn't necessarily have to imagine, Shoshanna suddenly seems to bloom from the rosewood floor. Her chocolate-colored hair a mass of curls half fallen out of spray from dancing and eyes dark and bright, Olivier echoes her smirk.  
  
"Shoshanna." His greeting was warm, loud to be heard over the music and then quieter again in an instant. "Ciao bella." Kisses planted on both of her cheeks, he takes her hands and squeezes, never once blinking his gaze away. She echoes his response two kisses, "D'Grey, bonjour cheri," but is apparently distracted by his brother. Good, Olivier thinks, as that's the whole point.  
  
"And who is this lovely," Shoshanna made the word sound like 'loverly', "specimen?" The round eyes she gives Tony makes him wonder if they would actually have to make her forget anything but he would if necessary. It was true Shoshanna chose willing participation. It was equally true he wouldn't let someone be frightened of his brother unduly. (And why let her suffer with memories he could take away?)  
  
He mouths, but Shoshanna laughs once and shakes her head, tapping her ear. Smirking to himself, he leaned in to it to "repeat" himself. "This is my brother, Tony." He offers first and then quieter, hopefully quiet enough that Tony couldn't hear (as if right now, they couldn't hear heart beats of those close to them and Madonna was Shoshanna's racing), "Whatever happens, bella, don't shout out I've got you, all right?" Of course, making it a question was a bit unnecessary. His tone had become the capos, he wasn't blinking, and _some_ one had to have given Hans the idea to learn Imperius wordlessly. After all.

It wasn't illegal if you didn't say the word.  
  
Shoshanna appeared, pulling Tony's gaze from the blondes. My, but she was absolutely stunning. He licked his lips briefly and then wiggled his fingers in greeting as their gazes met. Oli then leaned in to whisper something in her ear and Tony found himself not wanting to know, at all, and let his ears momentarily fill with the pounding music before stepping closer to her.  
  
"Antonio," he introduced himself over the music, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. He lowered it to reveal his appreciative smile still in place (as long as he didn't think about it, he didn't have to be nervous).  
  
"But most call me Tony."  
  
"Enchante, Antonio." Shoshanna answers with a little smirk reappearing on her lips as she lets her fingers linger in his grasp, falling slowly. "I'm not most."

Though right now she was extremely calm, which was unusual for her, but after nodding at D'Grey, she didn't care. She knew it wasn't smart to trust him but--she did, regardless. And she was studying for her PhD, mind you. No one would guess her night life by her day job and Shoshanna likes it this way.

  
Oh smooth, he liked that. He licked his lips after an appreciative chuckle. "I look forward to seeing for myself," he remarked easily though really if she enjoyed getting her blood sucked that spoke of some uniqueness already. He didn't falter though; Tony was glad to be able to feed from someone who was willing. He swallowed as the burn returned to his throat with the thought of it.  
  
"Your first name too, how surprising" she continues, lips flicking up as Olivier chuckles once beside her (though she wouldn't know that, having never looked away). "I'm flattered. D'Grey?"  
  
"Ah," Olivier wiggles a finger in the air, "Mi dispacie, bella, but I'm not going to make it that easy on you."

"My brother," he shot Olivier a look that plainly spoke that he should be thankful that Tony didn't just say his name right there, "considers himself an international man of mystery." Like Austin Powers, he almost said, but with better teeth.  
  
His eyebrows perk peculiar, thinking she actually had gotten his name once. An evening she wouldn't remember and he thinks he would do the same, for fairness' sake. Shoshanna was making darkness alluring in the best way with her wide, dark gaze stuck on Tony's. Olivier smiles as he adds, teasing his brother, "And you shouldn't be flattered, really-he gives his out all the time."  
  
"Oh," Shoshanna has bells in her voice, teasing right back. "Like you don't let your Italian and eyes play the same game."  
  
Olivier's smirk quirked, and he shrugs a shoulder. Yeah, yeah he did.  
  
"On the other hand," she says as she puts hers in Tony's again, "I do insist on a dance, Antonio."  
  
Yes, Tony really was quite generous with his first name. In his opinion that didn't diminish the introduction, indeed it should only enhance it. Olivier was a bit backwards sometimes (see: most times).  
  
"I would love to, cara," he replied after a quick smirk, holding her hand up and heading away from the table to the dance floor.

There was a moment in Tony's gaze as he remarks on anticipation that Olivier sees - hot, red, dark. It's casually offered on events to come that were anything but. Wetting his own bottom lip, he slips his hand in his silk-lined pocket. He aims for the coins to resume fidgeting, yet somehow finds the hilt of his knife. Fingers caress the grooves as he shifts around the table, watching Tony be half-led away.  
  
"Oh sure." He calls on his Saharan throat, smirk so high it thinks to chase eyebrows jumping away from it, "Just abandon me here, brother."  
  
Some part of him wants to cringe at his joke, but that was how they move beyond it. Tony was here, on the pier, south side bar. He was in a bar frequented by vampires and toys (willing and unwilling alike), there to feed as much as his head continued to ache against what his throat burns for. He was here, just as he'd been saying he would be here against Olivier's well-founded (yet ill held against Tony) insecurities. Tony wasn't abandoning him ever again.  
  
Which was precisely why it was okay, had to be okay, to joke about it. Only in accepting what we are can we get what we want. Olivier thinks this unknowing he's not quoting his father. He was quoting well, George Martin, in those thousand page tomes given to him by Tony.

Olivier wasn't leaving either, all joking aside. He watches, toying with his knife. Shoshanna has her arms up around Tony's neck, though she's throwing her hair over her own so frantically, he remembers briefly she was well-aware. Not once was there a clear image of her neck. The thought of the challenge to get her to stay still dries his lips, but he remembers: that thrill was her goal too.  
  
"International man of mystery," she goes on her toes as they enter the floor, meaning to whisper it in his ear and still having to talk normally. The music shook the red walls. Hand slipping over his collarbone as she presses her hips to his, she teases, "Quoting Austin Powers? And the mystery of you deepens, Antonio."  
  
She swivels one eighty, hand slipping up to take his cheek, hair cushioning (and hiding) her neck. Thumb slipping over his bottom lip as they sway, she parts them slowly. Breathless for memories and suspicions, she does whisper this time and yet thinks if she's right, he'll hear just fine.  
  
"You sure you're truly a D'Grey?"


	33. Drink

"You're all right."  
  
Olivier suspects this would be more comforting to hear had he not just been thinking the same thing; hearing Shoshanna repeat his thought aloud was a bit eerie. Or maybe she'd said "it's" all right? He didn't think she has a reason to tell Tony _he_ was all right. If (as they'd been taught) God created everything from nothing then surely vampires were as naturally evolutionary as humans from monkeys, which made their 'hybrid' things only the next logical step. There were downsides to vampirism they didn't have (predominantly the 'living alone forever' part), but benefits they did. It just...had come at a price.  
  
(But at least the price was bloody delicious when you let yourself enjoy it. Sex was just a biological process too if you want to be technical.)  
  
He was locking and silencing the room. His brother was with a girl spreading herself on a sofa of red velvet and throw pillows, exposing her neck. Tony still has his knife. So, all right, maybe now was not the time for the philosophical discussion.  
  
"Really." Shoshanna's words were soft, her fingers grazing over Tony's lips as if she could still their trembles with her caress. Back and forth, back and forth...  
  
"I enjoy it."  
  
She whispers that.

Was his hesitance that transparent? Tony had tried to give himself in to the dancing and the teasing, and the fact that Shoshanna was a beautiful, and gorgeous woman but as soon as they were in the private room, his hesitance driven by his nerves returned.  
  
She laid all but spread out like a full-course meal for his enjoyment, telling him she liked it and he had already by this time sat on the couch, close to her.  
  
He looked up to his brother briefly, if only to remind himself that he was there, and Olivier wouldn't let him harm Shoshanna. Licking his dry bottom lip in anticipation as he looked back at the exposed neck, he raised a hand to pass the pad of his fingers to feel the pulse, and then swallowed.  
  
In turn, her fingers moved across his lips, though they weren't about to grow fangs. He had a knife, now in his right hand, which he would use to cut her neck and drink.  
  
He thought maybe about drinking from the wrist but if she wanted to enjoy it, the wrist didn't seem that enjoyable, and he wasn't going to take that away from her. As long as he didn't snap her neck, everything should be fine.  
  
"Do I," he began, addressing his brother in Italian, and had to clear his throat once he realized how raspy his voice sounded, how dry his throat had grown in anticipation, "the cut, do I make it vertically or horizontally?"  
  
He'd never consciously decided before, just hung on to whatever piece of the body was bleeding at the time. Oh, Shoshanna giggles as she hears Tony start talking again in quiet mumbles and a language she didn't know. She doesn't really want to; he was speaking Italian and dressed all in black as his fingers press on her neck. Understanding some mundane question would spoil her atmosphere, and she's had quite enough of that. D'Grey, the nameless one, had come with his brother and she thinks dimly that should _frighten_ her more than aggravate her into demanding privacy, but the thought (like all its similar) flit away barely noticed as breathy, warm Italian fills her ears.  
  
Satin shifts beneath Tony as Shoshanna rearranges beneath him, chuckling just once as if to repay the favor while she slips out of her stilettos to settle him. This younger D'Grey was nervous, she'd thought when he introduced himself, but now she realizes it wasn't simple anxiety in his eyes.  
  
Antonio was hungry.  
  
Hearing the uptick in her heart, Olivier stills himself, fingers pausing over his open mouth as if licking away want's shade. The desk lamp and moonlight were the only things lit, but now they flicker in his black gaze.  
  
Then he sits, arms unfolded as he leans against a stack of files and grips the desk. His eyes never leave his brother as he answers.

"Depends, brother."  
  
Both in Italian, and with reassuring eyebrows and a nod, Olivier absolutely refuses to move an inch until necessary. Tony has to know that. Tony has to know Olivier wouldn't leave his brother, not his body and not his soul, not one piece of him behind.  
  
"The higher you cut on her throat, the easier it is to fit your mouth on a horizontal cut. Just before you do though, if you cast on the area," he gives him the spell, "it'll act as localized anesthetic. Beyond that, it's personal preference really."  
  
Now he shrugs through a tiny, nonchalant smirk. He knew how strange it was to say that. Olivier always had an appreciation for the bizarre and more-than-a-little immoral.  
  
"I'll stop you if necessary, but you won't learn control unless you stop your self." He reminds him, still in Italian. "Just...breathe into it, relax. There's no rush. No reason you can't have more later either. And being as you're the most selfless person I know..."  
  
Olivier fell silent as he realized Shoshanna had murmured in French, her heart skipping furiously the closer Tony got to her. Fear and excitement melded together--Olivier has to wet his lip and so he stiffens it. Speaking of selflessness: he won't steal from his brother. And ha! Wasn't that a commandment?  
  
He nodded as he listened, to show that he was in fact listening, even if it didn't appear that way. Because no matter how much Tony wanted to keep looking at his brother to explain, his gaze kept returning to Shoshanna's exposed neck, and every glance back to her only made her heartbeat faster. He felt it easily with the barest brush of his fingers and heard it with just as much ease.  
  
The nonchalant way that Olivier spoke of cutting into the women and drinking from her helped. Two months ago it would have been cause enough to punch his brother in the throat and demand to speak with the real Olivier Auguste D'Grey, but tonight it only helped. He wouldn't have been assured from an Olivier that looked hesitant.  
  
Turning from his brother again with another nod, he licked his lips again as the heartbeat only grew louder in his ear. Locking on to it, he let himself be immersed into it until there was nothing left but his desire to drink.  
  
He forgot the spell. It died on his lips as he lifted the knife and thanks God his hands didn't tremble, or maybe it was someone else he should be thanking, and then dragged it across her skin.  
  
The crimson liquid began to pour from the cut in a straight line, a droplet of blood leading the way. He licked it off before it reached her collarbone and then attached his mouth over the cut, sucking on it hard. He closed his eyes, in the pleasure of the drink, and gripped the other side of her neck hard to keep her in place, as his other hand curled around the edge of the sofa and clenched down, knuckles white.  
  
He inhaled through his nose, if only to keep drinking, drink and gorge. He wanted to bask in her blood, swim in it, drown in it. Joy slid down his throat, warming it even more, every sip somehow leaving his mouth drier, increasing his want, his utter need.  
  
The blood didn't flow fast enough. He almost whined, but it would interrupt the flow, so he just gripped her tighter to him, sucked down harder, staining his lips and teeth. More, was the mantra that had taken over. More.  
  
On the subject of the bizarre and more than a little immoral, Olivier couldn't think of many things that top his list more than watching his little brother use his knife to drink a girl's blood as he had once watched his father. Tony forgot the spell; he could tell from the way she tenses and 'ahh's before relaxing into a dizzy grin. Olivier could tell because he'd forgotten to cast it himself the first time.  
  
It flashed across his memory: this room, his father sitting with something pretty and petite and 'aged to perfection' at twenty-four. Those words, "have a drink with me, son", and that first hot taste of it to strike his throat. The strength he could feel in his arms again, the safety of hearing his father's pride! Olivier remembers so quickly he has to turn, picking a glass of water up over the overcrowded desk, drowning his dry throat until he forgets.  
  
When he opens his eyes again, Shoshanna's murmured something in French he can't make out. What he can tell, is how Tony's gripping her closer. The girl has her hand squeezing his hip as she glides her chest against his, rubs up and down slowly, drawn out. Now Olivier watches as for the first time her nails dig in, like she's trying to decide if she should push him away.  
  
He doesn't know if she's doing so or just pulling him closer. He does knows why she doesn't cry out if something was wrong, why she wasn't afraid. (Olivier told her not to be.) Moving in a blink, he sits on his brother's side, all thoughts of the spare blood droplets gone. The scent was forgotten.  
  
"Tonio." He intones still in Italian, hand coming to his little brother's shoulder, eyes hard. "Easy."  
  
His voice was firm, but gentle, like he holds a baby bird learning to fly. Tony couldn't let him carry him forever, and this time Claude couldn't help.  
  
"I know it tastes good - no, I know it tastes like it's everything there is and nothing else in the world matters, but that's not true. Okay? That is not true Tonio, listen to me," fingers curl around his brother's shoulder, but whatever his quickening heart he makes no other move to stop him. Not yet. "Because you're the one who taught me that, brother. And now I get to tell you, because karma's funny like that, but you're going to have yo listen to me if you want to say i-told-you-so, baby brother, because you need to stop. She is a person, and that matters."  
  
He has to pause to ghost his own hand down Shoshanna's arm, willing her to stop trembling. The procession of his fingers is slow, trailing along goosebumps as he thinks of irony and gods and devils and men.  
  
"You're not going to kill her, brother."  
  
Shoshanna's heart jumps at his words, and she moans - struggling underneath a heavy, warm and firm Antonio. She thinks once dimly she'd loved that but fear is creeping drowsily into veins that feel like sandpaper, but she still doesn't cry out, and Olivier barely notices.  Except he might think 'not helping.'  
  
"You're not. Listen to me, Tonio. Her name is Shoshanna. She's twenty-three years old, from Ireland, she lives with her sister who works here and speaks almost nine languages. She's studying to be a lawyer, Tony, has a German Shepherd at home and a wicked laugh and you," his voice drops to a hard hiss, "are not going to kill her."  
  
A hand on his shoulder makes him tense, and with a growl muffled against the stained skin of Shoshanna's neck, tries to shrug the hand off him. It didn't budge, and the voice kept talking. He tried to block it out, focus on the feed, when a part of him suddenly spoke against it. The tiniest thought, insignificant, easily ignored, but it was enough to realize who it was that was talking to him, asking him to listen.  
  
His hands only tightened further in response, he heard a strained gasp against his ear but the blood started flowing a little faster now so he continued drinking eagerly. He could never separate himself from something so good. Tonio was being immersed by a joy growing in his chest. To him it glowed bright white; with eyes closed, that light grew from dim darkness until he was nearly blinded; blinded by more happiness than he knew what to do with. He never wanted to stop feeling this way. How could Olivier ask him to give this up?  
  
Because, Olivier's voice answered as if he could read his thoughts, Tony couldn't kill her. Because she mattered.  
  
Didn't he matter too? This is all he's ever wanted, he doesn't want to give it up.  
  
But you don't want to kill her, the small voice inside his own head countered. You don't want to kill anyone ever again.  
  
What was one more person? It wouldn't matter -his eyes screwed up to keep them closed, to keep him drinking- just one person.

Olivier acts the role of immutable stone as his brother hits at him like a fly. He keeps striking at his shoulder to push him away until he seems to decide it was more important to grab Shoshanna, hold her down even though her struggles were only ever weaker, than push him away. It's a step. It's too soon for relief, but it only makes it less likely he's going to have to interfere, and there's a glimmer of hope burning in his chest.  
  
He's glad it's Tony. Anyone else at this moment, and Olivier would be too tempted to join in. Wasn't that sick? But it was relieving too, to know his worry for Tony's sake still outweighed his hunger or greed.  
  
They were born with both, but Olivier knew why this was difficult for his brother. Blood's taste was negligible when paid attention to. The copper narcotic induced exalt singing hymns of strength and delight, reminds you of the taste of every moment in your life that ever made you beam. That ever made you feel you could lift your arms and touch the sky. For a brief moment there was the tranquil relief of peace, a bliss that warms you from your toes to nose and makes you want to giggle like a boy launching rockets on a summer day or blush like it's your first kiss. Bottled in warmth and sex, drinking was happiness.  
  
Tony had strived his whole life to feel happy.  
  
Olivier gets that more than anyone, he who knows he's both the reason his brother lost it and ever had it. Just as he was doing now in teaching him to indulge.

And then Tony tasted it. She might have been pushing at him with weak limbs, digging nails into his skin, and no longer sighing in contentment, but it was only when he tasted fear that he remembered what it was. The same taste that coated his tongue when he had drank from everyone else; those thugs, the Death Eaters in Hogsmeade, Emily.  
  
The fear was more pungent this time, maybe because it hadn't been in the blood from the beginning. Now it was all he could taste. The bright light turned dark but the desire still burned in the back of his throat. Fear, it came with violence, with ripping people apart, with drinking from a spraying artery, with certain death.  
  
And after the death, the mourning. A sister that would be told of this woman's early demise, like he'd told Emily's father. Half a dozen of people who would never be the same again. Half a dozen faces etched with heartache. All his fault. With eyes flying open he backed away in a flash, leaving Shoshanna on the couch while he turned away to the furthest corner of the room, screwing his eyes shut he rubbed at his face as he took in quick shuddering breaths, attempting to calm himself down.  
  
It was dizzying, it was intoxicating, it was too much too fast always and despite her fear, shivers trail up her spine from more than fatigue. The endorphin rush matched with that terrifying, thrilling thought - she might die from this - runs fire through veins turning to ice and dirt as they're sucked dry. Shoshanna's eyes flutter weakly, and the hand on his hip slips under his shirt, tugging at him.  
  
And then he's gone.  
  
D'Grey was on top of her in a flash just as quickly; she swallows a sudden dry gasp as pain floods through her at the desertion, the rip his teeth made through her flesh when yanking free. Then his hand is holding the wound closed and breathy Italian sweeps in her ear. She knows he's closing it, knows he's got some vial to her lips - she coughs, yuck, that was fucking disgusting, why was she...(she yawns), well actually it wasn't so bad now, really, she feels tired, feels heavy even though hadn't she been losing weight when she was sick? She could fit into that gown for Marina's party now. Ohhh but shhh, shhh that was a surprise, shh, no one was allowed to know...  
  
As he feels Shoshanna slip into sedated sleep, Olivier pulls his hand off the now-closed wound. Scarlet glints at him in the dim light. Oh, why not? It wasn't anything worse than anything else he'd done, even tonight alone. A quick lick cleans his palm, and he closes his eyes in a drowse.  
  
Then he blinks back across the room to his brother, freeing white linen from his breast pocket. Holding it up to him with what remains of the bottle of water, he let's only a small smile (despite triumph in his heart) appear on his lips.  
  
"Hey. Tonio, you did it." He says, still speaking in Italian, the free hand is floating near his brother's shoulder. "She's fine. You didn't hurt her." For more than a minute anyway, which was dramatically outweighed by the fact that she spent minutes happy and now sleeps unburdened, still breathing. Olivier considers that a win even though his eyes were heavy.  
   
"You pulled away yourself, the rest just--just takes time."  
  
Tony takes the handkerchief, rubs it hard against his lips and then finishes off the rest of the water bottle, rubbing his lips again before he turned to look at Olivier again. He nodded, focusing on what he was saying. Right, he had pulled himself away but only because his guilt had outweighed the happiness he had been feeling. Not exactly inspiring, but it didn't need to be. Shoshanna was still alive, that's what mattered.  
  
He looked back at the sleeping woman once and then nodded, rubbing the back of his neck as he inhaled again. In true Tony fashion, it wasn't a difficult and awkward situation until he made a joke about it.  
  
"You know that feeling," he started, breathing in deep, "when you first try orgasm denial on yourself? That was way worse." He rubbed at his lips again, his brief chuckle not quite reaching his eyes.  
  
A chuckle burst forth from his lips so unexpectedly that you'd think he never laughed at the strange, bad-taste jokes his brother made. As was usually true with Olivier D'Grey, the truth was something quite different. He always laughed. Even when he rolls his eyes, even when he's irritated, even when he exasperatedly exhales "Tony." and pinches his nose -- his brother always makes him laugh. Somehow it's always the loudest for statements that equally make him want to cry.  
  
"Yeah." He echoes easily, wiping at his lips with the back of his hand. "Yeah, I know it is. Gets easier though. Then it gets...fun."  
  
He says the word hesitantly, eyes unblinking as they stay on Tony even as his brother looks to the slumbering woman. So he adds quickly, "For her too."  
  
He and Tony were born predators.  Tutored as he was by Dad, there were parts of this he never would show his brother: the rush that came from stalking could be better than the capture, the thrill of a rabbit-heartbeat succumbing to your seduction. Morality more than got in the way for such enjoyment, as it cripples you with guilt afterwards for your life. God, he couldn't thank his brother enough for burdening him with it.  
  
(Was that sarcastic? He didn't mean to be. Well, most days.)  
  
Shoshanna was breathing, steady; Olivier can see the palpable relief on Tony's face, so he takes his brother's shoulders with both hands and squeezes, then slaps his cheek once, smirk in place.  
"C'mon. Let her sleep. I'll get the bourbon," as if he didn't usually pay for that, "and we can celebrate at home...oh."  
  
Only now seeming to rejoin the real world he remembers, and quickly checks his phone, a sheepish grin on his face as he sees the picture message from Daniella: an empty cocktail glass and the words "Started without you."  
  
"...I'll pick Dani up too." Olivier adds, trying to stuff the phone away before his brother sees. He licks his bottom lip. "Been...a little while since I've seen her. A week, a lifetime, same thing, you make fun of that and you can buy the bourbon."  
  
Somehow easier then fun wasn't sounding so...appealing as his brother wanted him to think about it. But Tony was taking a leap of faith in all of this because he did trust Olivier, even when he couldn't trust himself.  
  
He looks back from a sleeping Shoshanna and finds himself chuckling again as Oli claps his shoulder and cheek and then nods. Yes, some bourbon and getting out of here would help.  
  
Seeing Olivier's grin at his phone, Tony cocked his eyebrow and knew who it was immediately. A-huh.  
  
A week, he blinked. "It's been a week?" Really? That long already?  
  
"I'm not going to make fun, I'm going to tell you to go to her, dumb-ass. I can hold the fort." A week, poor things. Somehow now his blood addiction seemed small in comparison.  
  
His head shoots up so quickly, you'd think his neck breaks. Olivier pays no attention to the sudden jerk, his eyes darting from his brother to Shoshanna and back. There was a reason he hadn't gone to see Daniella in a week, despite wanting to. The same reason he knows she hasn't dropped by.  
  
Amused as he was by the scandalized look on his little brothers face - oh, blood addiction? no problem. A week without seeing your girlfriend? Call the police. (Oh wait, Olivier has more authority than they do) - he was still worried. It just didn't seem...right leaving Tony and Stefanie alone in the manor yet. No matter how large the manor was.  
  
"Oh, it's all right..." He starts. Then sees Tony's face. Oivey, that was his little brother's "you're being a moron, Olive oil" face. His nose wrinkles.  
  
"Yeah. Right. Okay. You sure though?" He grins, saying in the same tone his brother had mentioned orgasm denial, even as he waves his hand and materializes a blanket for Shoshanna, "I'd rather not walk in on you and Stef's corpses.Or you two fucking in the parlor, really."  
  
No, it really wasn't and Tony's eyebrows let him say that for him immediately. Especially this week, which had to be honestly one of the most tiring and exhausting weeks in the history of ever. He should know, because Tony knew things, so he was right.  
  
And he didn't really want to think about the fact that because Stefanie and him were on some extensive blood-training program, Olivier put his love-life on hold even if it was just for a week. That was a big no no. Weren't there enough reasons to feel guilty for?  
  
"Yeah, I'm sure- no promises about the parlor." With Stef, you just never knew. "But if I tell her it's been a week for you and Dani, I'm sure she'll be on her best behavior. We'll read the Winds of Winter aloud, or something." He smirked and now it was his turn to clap his brother on the shoulder.  
  
"Go, or I really will make fun of you."  
  
"You sure reading Martin will be _calming_?" Olivier couldn't help pointing out, but he was mostly teasing. Madonna a mi, was he glad for his olive toned skin at the moment, hiding any creeping blush.  
  
Though as he walks across the room to fix the haphazard blanket (he used to be better at that, he swore), he thinks about it. There was no chance of keeping either of them dispassionate; that could be...safe, for them to actually get passionate about.  
  
His hand ghosts up Shoshanna's arm, and a soft smile appears as he hears her easy, steady heartbeat. He fixes the blanket, then leabs and places a kiss on her forehead, sticky lipped to her pale skin. Mostly to hide casting an end to his spell...and his quiet 'grazie, cara' in her ear.  
  
Then he blinks back across the room, and unlocks the door, his hand hitting his brother's upper back.  
  
"Fine. And I'll tell Dani who she has to thank. But you have to clean up."  
  
Olivier teased, but his eyebrows were saying a serious 'thanks' for him. And once his brother wasn't in this room, he might even be happy to be going.


	34. Rainbow

"Honey, I'm home," he remarked in a clear voice as he entered the manor again, smirk hiding the fact that he rarely used the pet name 'honey' unless it was condescendingly and that the factD'Grey manor was only home to him about a quarter of the time, depending on his mood. Today, it was home, and he was happy to be getting to it if only because this place was familiar and known and it was the closest thing to safe he had right now.  
  
He headed immediately for the bourbon, pouring himself a glass and then swirls the amber liquid inside before turning around, looking at Stef as she appeared.  
  
"I'm not apologizing." He took a sip.  
  
"You're alone," is what she says instead, arms folded across her chest. She's leaning on the door jam, her smile frozen in place. Behind her words were the simple addition: 'and you're home early.'   
  
At least, that was why she omitted the immediate, obvious 'and what sort of time do you call this?' But that didn't mean she could resist adding in her best River Song voice, "sweetie."  
  
Blinking, she seems to reappear at his side instantly -- but not his back. Stefanie was learning.  
  
"Pour me one, at least?"  
  
"Of course, why, where are my manners?" He turned and then opened the decanter again to pour her a generous glass like he had done for himself. Offering it up to her with a silent 'there you go' before adding, "Must have left them at the club."  
  
He took up his own glass again and swirled too before answering her first statement. "I told Olivier to head to Daniella's. Poor things have spent a week apart, I couldn't have that."  
  
At the club. Her cheeks flared with impressive red, if Stefanie had been concerned with considering how difficult blushing was without a heart beating faster than once or twice a minute. Anger, it seemed, kicked it to beat just like magic!  
  
And if she didn't know that he said it intentionally to irritate her...  
  
All right, she still nearly breaks the glass as she takes it from him. Doesn't spill a drop though! She breathes out, in, out with her sip (the habit still calms her by the rhythm).  
  
An eyebrow pops as he explains why and she nods once. "A week?" She echoed it as unnecessarily as her breath had been; Tony listened to himself speak. (Mostly). But...woah. A week...because of her?  
  
Hi, guilt she has to fight to remember is there.  
  
"Right." She leans against the bar and then hears herself say, listening as well as Tony, "I wasn't going to ask you to apologize."  
  
Her eyes, light blue, lift from the amber liquid to hold his hard even as her words were soft. Hearing his heart skip a beat and stiffening her lip to stop from wetting it, she concedes, "...Maybe tell you I remember better stamina than you must have had with her."  
  
A weak smile crosses Stefanie's lips.  
  
Good, he almost said but held it back, knowing that he wasn't really irritated at her more than his entire situation. And at Chantel too, he was irritated, angry, and also entirely turned on by her still, but he didn't have time for that. Feeding made him feel better, that was true. Better as in, his thoughts were no longer on getting blood therefore they were on every single other problem there was in his life. Maybe better was too positive a word.  
  
He smirks at her comment, turning his head to look at her with an easier, more genuine smile on his lips. "It was different. Feeding from her than you. Like she didn't feed back," he smirked briefly before taking another sip.  
  
"I stopped myself," he added casually. "Haven't done that before."  
  
"She --" Only Stefanie cuts off as she realizes very abruptly he must not be talking about Chantel, and quickly takes a sip to cover herself.   
  
He'd stopped himself though. However casual the statement might appear, she knew better than that. Stefanie could tell without looking at him. Stalling her breath, she insures she doesn't inhale his delectable scent more than she had to.  
  
She smiles once, at him.  
  
"Was it?" She thinks it doesn't surprise her: feeding from Tony was different than feeding from the others...but she liked the former best, no question.   
  
"I'm glad for you."  
  
Her voice wasn't near as casual now, but it was genuine. Setting the glass down and folding her arms across her chest again as she looks at him, her arms shrug up as she adds nonchalant, almost, "It...probably shouldn't bother me you fed from someone else."  
  
His eyebrows rose briefly, wondering about the cause of her little outburst. Stefanie had already assumed he had fed from a woman, why was 'she' that important? Women.  
  
She was genuine though when she expressed being glad for him, and his smile remained as he nodded with a little gratitude. He took another drink, looking forward again. All in all, it wasn't that bad a day, if he considered the entire day separately from any other day. Training had gone smoothly, the little witch's neck remained intact, he had fed from a woman without killing her, and he had ensured two lovebirds got together after an extended absence (a whole week!). Not too shabby.  
  
He looked back after another exhale caused by the bourbon pouring down his throat. Stef sounded about as casual as he had when he tried a minute before.  
  
"Probably," he echoed, licking his lips and then said with a raise of his eyebrows, "then again you've never really struck me as the type to share your toys."  
  
"You aren't a toy." It was her instinct, it seemed, to argue - not merely her prerogative. The fact was, he was right, she didn't want to be wrong, so she argues a technicality until she's right anyway. Gracious, had turning into a vampire made her that much of a bloody cliche?  
  
....Ooh, bad pun. Stef giggles to herself -- at, with herself, and presses her palm over her mouth to stifle the young sound. (She'd sound that way to others forever now, she thinks dimly, and yet older every day to herself).   
  
Smacking her lower back before she holds it, she chews on her bottom lip with blunt teeth. "And I don't have you." That was blunter than her teeth, but her eyes stay blue. "You would have to not be so angry with me for that. And I with you. But!"   
  
False brightly, as she claps her hands together, she asks, "As I know that's a loaded subject and a bit too much to ask in any case...is civility? If only to prevent Mother Olivier from never leaving the unruly kids alone unsupervised again?"  
  
Stefanie smirks.  
  
His eyebrows lift again as she giggled to herself about an unknown-to-him joke and then snorted as he shook his head as she admitted he wasn't hers because he was too angry at her and she too angry with him. He supposed the last was because she felt the need to remind him that he wasn't the only grieved here. As if he needed any reminder.  
  
"Hard to do when one of has an expiration date and the other doesn't." Cattiness, he wished that was a new one for him, he honestly did. That way he could have an excuse.  
  
He took another sip at her false brightness as he shook his head but then nodded, agreeing with that much at least.  
  
"I can do that," he lifted his glass in her direction and finished it off before smirking. "Told Olivier we were going to take knives to our wrists- I mean, read some Winds of Winter to pass the time."  
  
"As you have made perfectly clear, Antonio," she retorts and is only mildly surprised to hear his full name cross her lips as she squeezes her arms to her chest, "I'm not indestructible."   
  
But she wasn't ever again going to be locked behind glass, stuffed in a tall tower. Let Tony be the one rescued for once (oh, she remembers abruptly and tries not to wince as she remembers Olivier had done so)--she would ride the dragon to him. Slaying was barbaric, of course.  
  
Unexpectedly, except this was Tony so maybe not, she laughs. An accurate definition of reading A Song Of Ice and Fire, though.   
  
"Right." Was she ever going to stop saying that to him? "Read-aloud hour. I like it. You trying to put me to bed?"  
  
The innuendo just slips out, Stefanie promises.  
  
"And can we skip Davos chapters?"  
  
None of them were. He scoffs under his breath and shakes his head. Why was everyone in his life so determined to make that a bad thing? The fact that they bled, cried, that they weren't invincible, and that any moment could be their last and therefore every moment was precious, those weren't bad things. Every single person he knew, obsessed with getting rid of weaknesses, and now him as well. Weakness made them human, and humanity was beautiful.  
  
Stef had said no loaded subjects however, so he didn't say any of that out loud. Merely refrained from grabbing another glass and chuckled.   
  
"Yes, you see right through me."  
  
Aha, oh that was right. She thought Davos' chapters were boring. He smirked, countering, "Only if we can also skip Bran's."  
  
"But Bran's --" Stefanie started to gasp in irritation, only to see him simply smirk at her. Huffing, she elbows him, before remembering and almost, almost feeling bad for her strength. Only she giggles as she meets his hardened shoulder again and remembers: he'd fed live and less than an hour ago, it was unlikely she could hurt him at all.  
  
Well. She could...and he could hurt her back and it would not do much good for their civility attempt. Besides. Stefanie was giggling for a reason; she didn't want to hurt him, and she couldn't deny she was pleased that he meant to spend the evening with her. Even if it was to give Daniella an evening with Olivier too, she was...she was happy.  
  
"All right, fine. No skipping either." She concedes as she goes to fetch the book from the shelf and was back in a blink. Holding it up to him, she hangs on to it and smirks back to him.   
  
"And I'll get in bed," her eyebrows wiggle, "if you get in with me. So." She drums her fingers across the top of the book and says in that Mistress tone, "Take your shirt off."  
  
The elbowed tickled more than it hurt but it was a lot easier to fake an 'ouch' than to contain laughter all out right so he chose to go with the former. Tony was glad that she saw it was a joke and again, the giggle came to her lips for a reason unknown to him but he still enjoyed hearing it from her and seeing the smile on her face.  
  
"You mean read a book the way it's supposed to be read? Wow!"   
He smirked, joking. Tony didn't like skipping chapters, even if he had already read them, even if they were boring, ever. And he didn't find Davos' boring. Euron on the other hand...  
  
He goes to grab it when she keeps it instead, and raises his eyebrows as she wonders what she could possibly be after before she speaks it and then laughs. Alright, if it has to be that way, he found no problem.  
  
Slipping his shirt off and then slinging it over his shoulder (it wasn't going to go on the floor), he gestured, "And what happened to equality, hmm?"  
  
"Since when do we conform?" Stefanie retorts instantly with a sparkle in her gaze and twirk to her lips. It let her hide their obvious truth, the inevitable second half to the statements. Since when are we normal, even though it's what we want to be?  
  
Stefanie wasn't sure anymore what she wanted, if she was honest. The world hurt, her heart was heavy even if it didn't really beat. Her eyes implore as she looks back at him: Keep me, a small piece of me, precious.   
  
Laughter idling in her throat, her pink tongue wets her lip as she surveys him. Goddamn him. Equality? Well, that was the game they played. He'd obeyed her instantly and Stef wants to be fair.   
  
So she hugs the book over her chest, shedding her blouse with one hand and slings it over his other shoulder. Then, with another giggle, she keeps the book open in front of her chest and starts to read.  
  
"Prologue: The Maegi..."  
  
That was the painfully honest truth if he thought about it too hard. However, in keeping up with just light-hearted topics (a song of ice and fire excluded), he decided to not dig any deeper into that thought and continue on. Still, they weren't going to skip any chapters, so help him. If he ever had a pet peeve, it was this.  
  
Eyebrows lifting expectantly, his smirk only widened as she took her own shirt off in return and then put it over his other shoulder like a coat rack only to use the book to block his view.  
  
"Hey, hey, hey! You said bed." He smirked and then proposed. "Race you."  
  
She did say bed. It started as a joke, but as soon as their shirts came off Stef knew it was only staying that way so they don't have to admit it wasn't. As he said, it was hard to have more than that when one of them had an expiration date and the other didn't.  
  
(Did he think she was ignorant of that difficulty?)  
  
"...the grass thick and wet beneath her bare feet...--Race?" Stefanie pauses, and lowers the book just an inch to look at him. Her lips flick up.  
  
"Count off then, Snow. One..."  
  
"Twothree." With a wink, he moved in a flash out of the parlor, shirts in his hand now so they wouldn't go flying out. Jumping up the stairs instead running up them, he slid to turner a corner, Stefanie right behind him, then neck at neck with him, and then passing him as they neared her bedroom; it was the closest one.  
  
The door opened and then hit the wall with a loud crack as they got inside, and in a last minute attempt to make it a tie, he threw himself at her, arms wrapping around her waist, the momentum causing them to fall on the bed rolling, and then nearly falling off again.  
  
Unsure of where the shirts had gone to, Tony just let his head fall down half on the mattress and half in the air and laughed.  
  
As she rolls across in his arms, silk tangling around their unruly limbs as if it was the bed that wants to eat them, Stefanie hears her bright laughter finally echoed in Tony. Beam breaking like the sun at dawn on her face, it chased away night in the room. She laughs too, keeping the book safe over her heart and steadies herself listening to his breath even.   
  
"You cheat." She points out the obvious, too blissful to care and looking at the ceiling.   
  
The throw had her hair hanging off the bed, perpendicular to him, and she lifts her ankle to nudge his side, wiggling her toes on his chest.  
  
"There's no handprints on this one."  
  
What starts as an offhand comment turns almost sorrowful as she observes, as easily as she could see the unmarked wood grain with eyes acting a camera lens, she missed the painted prints.   
  
"Pirate," he answered by way of explanation, even though he could never be as smooth or as ruggedly appealing as Captain Jack Sparrow. It felt a much better answer than to say he needed the head start and that he just wanted an excuse to grab her without feeling awkward.  
  
He opened his eyes and looked at her again with a grin, wriggling away from her foot in case her new found dexterity figured out a way to tickle with toes and then chuckles again, looking up at the ceiling.  
  
"Well my room is one of a kind," he turns to lay on his side and then tries to grab the book. "Come on, let me read- I do the voices !"  
  
"You D'Greys and your love of breaking the rules..." She muses, enjoying the mental image of a rugged Tony standing atop a boat's mast heading in to Tortuga. Granted, Sparrow's boat sank. Yuck, a poetry she didn't want.  
  
So instead she pops up on her elbows, wiggling her toes in the air after him as he squirms away from her.   
  
"Let me guess," she says as if it only now occurs to her, "They're more like guidelines anyway?"  
  
"I don't break them, I bend them and only when absolutely necessary. I would never abuse such power," he smirks, getting himself a bit more comfortable on the bed so he didn't feel like he was going to fall off at any second with a simple push of Stefanie's foot (though that could probably still happen, but they were behaving).   
  
It wasn't like she honestly minds. She wanted him to grab her. It was why she got ahead of him.   
  
"Suesser..." Stef almost whines as he grabs for the book and then humphs, falling to rest at his side again. Graciously handing the book over, she now wiggles her fingers in the air.  
At least, he was behaving. Stefanie was being unfair in German and wiggling her fingers and speaking of wandering hands. Oi vey.  
  
"Fine. Have it your way. Entertain me." Her hands land on his chest. She continues speaking as they slide down his torso, flat-palmed, slow, "But I can't be held responsible for my wandering hands in the meantime."  
  
"I guess I'll just have to take that risk," he smirked after a lick of his lips and then opened the book once more, starting off where she left off.  
  
Her chin rests on one hand flat on his stomach as she listens. The other hand scratches back and forth near his nipple, moving slowly enough she won't tickle him. Stef can't help it. Hands were easier to talk with, and right now they were simply loving him.  
  
As he reads, she finds herself thinking she never wants to read this book alone again; it would never sound so good again. Was it actually possible she'd found a new way to love what had been a favorite of hers for decades already? Seven hells.  
  
Oh, she might have cursed that aloud. Her hand stills and she picks her chin back up, only now realizing she'd been half resting listening to his heart and smiles with that cute look of a sheep.  
  
"Just thinking." She explains, forgoing any apology for interrupting him. "The tragedy of Summerhall...Bryndyn couldn't have wanted that to happen. Makes you wonder what Dany might have been if Duncan had inherited like he was supposed to, you know?"   
  
Her wandering hands ended up being pretty well behaved. At least, behaved enough that he didn't get distracted but still found enjoyment in her soft touch. You could even say it meant more now, that her fingers could still be that gentle when they had the power to rip throats from necks.  
  
He looked up from the book with both confusion and amusement as she cursed in a typical Westerosi way. An eyebrow arching in question, as he hadn't read anything that particularly infuriating, he waited for her explanation, chuckling upon hearing it. Nodding, he considered.  
  
"Most likely dead," his brows furrowed before in hiding in one of the Free Cities."  
  
"Maybe." She considers, but contradictory as ever even as her hand resumes movement, "Or maybe Rhaeger could have just married Lyanna. Maybe Robert wouldn't have rebelled...if Duskendale hadn't happened because Duncan was king instead..."  
  
Her hand was now tracing a figure eight around his chest, but her eyes never leave his, never blink. She'd just been talking, covering herself, but now she was seriously considering it. Then the Targaryen's would have had time to properly prepare, she thinks, and the Others wouldn't have stood a chance.  
  
"The tragedy seems so much greater that way." She observes quietly, "You can see why the Ghost says she gorged on it." Her hand stills again, nail just at the tip of his nipple.  
  
Then she chuckles, adding, "Though I suppose there'd be no story for us to constantly murder ourselves with. That would certainly be a greater tragedy."  
  
Sure, they could be more important than an entire fictional civilization. Couldn't they? She kisses his belly button and offers quieter, "And it's not like Westeros doesn't find moments of happiness anyway."   
  
"Or," he added as well, raising a finger after he considered whether Rhaegar would have even had the opportunity to meet Lyanna, "maybe without being the crowned prince and without the tragedy of Summerhall, Rhaegar would never have become obsessed with the prophecy of the dragon having three heads. Definitely wouldn't have the status to warrant a marriage to the princess of Dorne, so, maybe he would have never seen Lyanna to begin with."  
  
It was pretty amazing, actually. How changing one detail, one tiny detail as the fire in Summerhall, could have affected the lives of all of those characters. Catelyn could still have married Brandon, because Aerys the Mad King would have never been on the throne, would have never killed Lord Rickard and Brandon. Who wo uld Ned be with, Ashara? Who knew. All he knew is that it wouldn't be the book series he had obsessing over for a decade.   
  
"We gorged on the tragedy too," he smirked to himself, licking his bottom lip as her fingers continued their slow dance, lips adding to the mix. The smirk faded into an easier smile as he passed the back of his hand down her shoulders.  
  
"Moments," he agreed, smiling. "Brief, far in between, but, yes."  
  
"But worth it." Stefanie says instantly, turning into the hand that he brushes across her upper back, keening towards him. A soft smile crosses her lip and she turns her neck to kiss a different patch of olive, warm skin. Her eyes stay tethered to his.  
  
"Every one of them," she kisses another pocket of skin every other word, then murmurs into his chest, "maybe made more meaningful by the fact they worked for then. Made them themselves."  
  
A teasing grin crosses her lips as she asks rhetorically, "Now, I can't remember -" yeah, there was a part of this series they didn't know by heart "- is it book six or seven Arya sees that rainbow in?"   
  
When your life was plagued with constant turmoil as it was for most of the characters in this series, even the smallest of happy moments were worth it. It was all that could keep them going, he supposed- no, he took that back. Half of the characters kept going by simple stubbornness refusal to die, the rest assigned themselves a higher purpose to give their life meaning. Happy moments were for the reader's benefit. Keep them from being too depressed.  
  
Well, this happy moment right now was doing a very good job of keeping him from depression. He hums, nodding along with her words and then he chuckles at the question. A rainbow. Was it only a few days ago that he had claimed to see one again?  
  
"Seventh," he answered, "I think. No one ever taught her how to make her own rainbow."  
  
"A shame they didn't." Stef says open-mouthed, busy licking under his lower-most rib. "I quite enjoy this one." She says, quiet and happy. She stops, licking at her bottom lip as she enjoys the rumble of his laugh reverberating in her throat, then finally turns to rest her cheek against him again, to let him resume.   
  
Her hands fold against his stomach only to find herself laughing abruptly at the voice he makes. She straightens up.   
  
"What was that supposed to be?!"  
  
He exhaled because he wasn't sure whether he wanted to moan or to laugh as she licked at the skin of his rib, biting his lip again and still ended up laughing either way, mumbling at her to play nice as he picked up the book again and continued where he left off, smile on his lips even though the subject wasn't a particularly happy one. Then again, it hardly ever was.  
  
He didn't read for long though before Stefanie was interrupting him again with laughter. His mouth dropped in feigned aghast before he answered, "Meera, ah-duh Stefanie! Who else?"  
  
"That was Meera!? My mistake, I just thought you swallowed a helium balloon...dozen. A dozen of them."  
  
Okay, Stefanie was mostly kidding. Mostly. Slipping up him a little, and wiggling as the bra was beginning to get uncomfortable, she rests her hand around his neck and brushes back and forth as she teases easily,   
  
"Didn't know your voice got that high, Tony...well. At least since you were fourteen."  
  
And she rests on folded hands on his chest now, content to just smile at him, looking all innocent and adorable.   
  
He laughed mockingly in the same high pitch, and then poked her side with a small smirk on his face. "Funny." He cleared his throat, feeling a tickle come from what he needed to summon in order to reach that particular pitch. Almost like summoning a demon, he summoned his inner female child counterpart.  
  
"My voice was never this naturally high, okay? This is a skill. Possibly the only skill I'm not excited about revealing to everyone so, shhhhh," he press ed a finger to her lips as she laid on his chest. "You are a horrid listener."  
  
"The onl--mph." Echo cut off by his finger (and okay maybe it had been a bit...incredulously spoken), she giggles against it, then tries to bite it. Thank God he took it back quickly, she realizes, the little nip a lot more naturally deadly at present...even to hybrids with Cinnamon tasting skin made of steel. (It was a good little nip she managed, all right, cute and harmless -- but tasty. Plus, she'd been kissing his chest for five minutes or...so.  
  
"There's a lot to listen to! But...right now, yes." She tilts her head, conceded the point and slides her hands closer together, dragging warm across his chest. "I'm not usually, you know. You're just...very distracting." Because yeah, sure, he was the one interrupting her. A guilty smile appears on her lips and then she pulls back abruptly, rolls off of him and snuggles up to his side, keeping only one arm over him as if to hold on to him, pose reminiscent of her holding her stuffed animal pony when she was three. Only her smile was wider, even when somber.  
  
"I truly am glad you were able to stop yourself, Tony." She smiles briefly and adds pleasantly, if prim, "...and glad you came back...here."  
  
Did she have to state more plainly she was glad he came back to her when she'd thought he was off feeding from Chantel for the evening?  
  
Oh, god that reminds her though. Her lips twist in a smirk as she cast her glance to follow her wandering hand up his chest to his eyes. She says, "Stopping yourself sucks the first time though, doesn't it? It's unfair. Like now I get why Tyrion doesn't stop drinking. Can you imagine that hangover?  
  
 Actually no--it's like Jaime losing his hand. All this power and wealth and purpose and then...gone. Damn you," she pokes Tony's chest, "Vargo Hoat. Never really liked goats anyways. Welllll that's not true but...you get my point."  
  
"I'm a distractive guy, I don't blame you," he smirked, mostly teasing after licking his lips again. Even though he wasn't the one being distracting from the story right at that moment. But like he said, he didn't blame her on that front. Actually, he couldn't blame her on many fronts even though it'd be healthier of him to do so. That was verging on deep thoughts however, deep and troubling so he digressed.  
  
It was easy to move on when she cuddled up to him like a teddy bear. Chuckling low in his throat, he murmured something about his faithful Madame Ser Cuddles growing jealous before she spoke again how she was glad he'd stopped. No gladder than he, that was certain, but it made him smile to hear her repeat it, knowing how much it meant for him to be able to do so.  
  
"I wouldn't have gone anywhere else," he spoke quietly, and as honestly as he could. Anything further than that, he couldn't say out loud at the moment, the same way she couldn't either.   
  
Chuckling and groaning, he nods, remembering, "And losing a hand is putting it mildly actually." He smirked and then turned back to the book with another quick shh, reading on. The interruptions continued- teases about his voice, laughter at Tyrion's sassy one-liners, discussions about almost absolutely everything, and one memorable reenactment. Eventually he handed the book back to Stefanie to read after she teased he was getting groggy, declared his voice needed a rest and soon after peaceful enough to fall asleep with a trace of a smile on his lips.  
  
The parlor remained intact.  
  



	35. Disruption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So," she drums her fingers along the rail, "the question is," idling on the bottom step and biting her lip.
> 
> "Is this 1885 and Notre Dame took the place of the dragon, where everybody thinks they're safe because Claudia slash Gina is dead, but he got what he wanted all the same? Or did someone manage to trip him up, force the spectacle, kill his asset and cause him to be meeting with associates here?"
> 
> "I much prefer the latter," he answered after following her extended question, "but I have no clue."
> 
> "Do you prefer that?" 
> 
> "If something disrupted Marcus', not to mention collateral accidentally set Notre Dame aflame, if someone was actually capable of that...well then a, I'm not surprised that the names Brackner and D'Grey are in the paper...ah." She presses her hand over the switch. "And b, if when Marcus is in control he only throws a dragon at an innocent village," she flicks the toggle, until the anteroom illuminates around them to a spacious stone chamber.
> 
> "Then what will he do when he has to take it...," she steps forward and braces her hips, warily and eyes wide, "back?"
> 
> "Raise hell," he answers just as quietly.

"Oh, this is too brilliant." Ansel was laughing, fingers curling around the newspaper edges. Ink tracks onto his palm as he grips the fold abruptly, bending it and whipping it across the small path to Melissa. She catches it on her chest, penciled eyebrow arching over eyes painted pink and a smile as sugary as he felt giddy at the headline.  
  
"'A City in Mourning', oh, merci Amalie. I want to gift wrap that and drop it on the D'Greys' doorstep."  
  
Ansel claps his hands together, then lounges back to prop an ankle wiggling with impatience as she reads the article. A truer portrait, he couldn't have painted. Hand adjusting his grey fleece, he tilts his head as he ponders to himself aloud.  
  
"Of course, it's incorrect to name only two vying for the Parisian throne...but bravo, Miss Avenier. Strange to think of little Amalie grown, actually...though...perhaps not too tall."

**&.**

"I thought Paris was supposed to hold the key to your heart," Rebecca grumbles as her hand trails over a crumbling brick wall seeking out the hidden lever. "Not the key to destructive psychopathy that is apparently," her hand comes up as if her finger doubles as an exclamation point, "incredibly flammable."  
  
Her hair thick with snow, she threw it off when she turned around to smile at her husband triumphant. Hand closing on the invisible lever, she pulled down as she finished the thought.   
  
"At least if you're Notre Dame."   
  
The door appeared as she adds, thinking aloud, "Though the question is whether or not that was part of his plan, as it seemed Tony was more involved there..."  
  
"Wait hold on, Blair and I watched that movie recently," he snapped his fingers, trying to recall the name as he looked around, even though he had very little knowledge on what it was supposed to be they were looking for. Rebecca had a vision, and if Marcus was even remotely involved with the destruction of Notre Dame, it was cause enough to worry.  
  
He'd read a translated article (his French was...non-existent, please and merci), entitled "A City in Mourning" which seemed to be almost the only news story, aside from blog posts from angry teenagers or disillusioned middle-aged adults, that took the events that transpired in the church for the tragedy that it was. Indeed, the article criticized others, for painting the situation as a heroic battle vs good and evil rather than just what it was: a power struggle between tyrants and those they oppressed.  
  
It was a very entertaining, very sharp, and also very somber piece, that sounded much more closer than the truth than all they'd been hearing so far. What Marcus would obtain from this however, he wasn't sure.  
  
He looked curiously as Rebecca's hand closed around something invisible. Rowland watched as a door appeared, blinking away his confusion and then smiling. Brilliant.  
  
"Anastasia?" Rebecca chuckles, finding it amusing. All right. Considering the amount Rowland had attempted to learn in the past decade, it was impressive how much he did retain -- from movies to ATMs to the new Vatican. Still, you'd think he'd remember the name of it when it was an Anastasia whom was the reason they met. Well. Anastasia and love and destiny.

"Hey, I would have gotten it eventually!" Of course he did, but to be fair to himself, Blair watched and made him watch many a movie about princesses on a journey of empowerment and self-discovery, he got a few confused sometimes! The same way he confused basketball teams and model trains except Alec had less patience with him than Blair, as backwards as that may seem.  
  
Rebecca just grins. Humming under her breath, "when you think you can't you'll find you can can...everybody can can, you can, can can too," she yanks on the door every time she says 'can.' It opens fully on the last. Marcus had opened the brick as if it were made of plastic. Damn vampires.  
  
"As much as I would like to blame Marcus for every act of evil in the world," he took a step forward towards the door, "he hasn't been t his...flamboyant and dramatic since 1885. Why now, what's changed?"  
  
She smirks at the remark, pretending she didn't think -- Marcus would like to think he was too. The passage that appears was as dimly lit as she remembers, and she frees a torch from her plush red jacket. A narrow beam illuminates the orange and pink and brown that crumbles, passing through darkness to see the way ahead. Thrills of foreboding trace down her spine. Rowland's question haunts the back of her mind as she stills.   
  
When she answers, it's on instinct, without looking back again.  
  
"We changed. We were supposed to be dead."  
  
Rebecca steps into the passageway.  
  
Grabbing a torch out of his back pocket, he clicked it on as Rebecca managed to open the door. She'd seen Marcus walk into the building while they chatted (he rolled his eyes) and so far it was the only lead they had. Normally, he would advocate leaving the investigating to the investigators but Marcus Ellwood was beyond jurisdiction and the only one who had managed to beat him was the woman standing next to him- in front of him, she was walking inside. Rowland followed her in.  
  
"All the more reason to step back and be more cautious don't you think?" He didn't understand Marcus logic, if he indeed operated by logic but given that he had abandoned all emotional attachment (a hard thing to believe), logic was the only thing he had left.  
  
He shined the torch ahead to see the passage lead into steps.  
  
"You said he was meeting someone here?"  
  
"I would think." Rebecca agrees, evading the fact that it wasn't what she thought Marcus would. Oh, he hadn't lit the match to set the holy building ablaze. Marcus Ellwood was a force to be reckoned with and a bored little kid who loved theater too much.   
  
Marcus would hand one person dry kindling, another the matchbook, sleep with the first's mother, bewitch her with fake charm to get the pair to fight, sit back and eat a persimmon while he watches. Rebecca knew. She'd been there in the cabin with him in 1885. To think she'd entangled herself and he hadn't even offered to share the fruit.  
  
(All right fine, he hadn't had fruit. The rest she swears is an accurate metaphor of the events. She'd even toned them down! Add a captive dragon in there.)  
  
Turning the corner torch first, she smacks her lips, breathing out hot as she nods.   
  
"Someone who wasn't human, but their eyesight was better than ours, wasn't quite as good as his." Her words were quiet, like they were being listened to as intruders. Stepping on to a stair, she tests her wait before continuing, "I didn't see them...I barely could see anything." In fact, she wants to practice that spell again, but she wasn't especially eager to have Marcus call her again.  
  
...Where was he, though? Considering the deal they'd made, she knew he might have ever-living patience and what not but, she had expected a more direct response than some strained involvement in Parisian affairs.   
  
(Oh Lady Rebecca, she chides mentally sarcastically,  _do_ you expect he cares for you?)   
  
As she starts to climb, her voice stays quiet. Rebecca looks back at Rowland holding the torch to the side so he could see her face.

"That makes no sense," Rowland frowned. He knew that his knowledge of the world was limited, even if it was ever growing, but he was pretty sure there we re very little things that could fit into that category.  
  
"Who else could he be meeting? Other vampires? They have the same vision. No idea about a werewolf's vision but why would he meet with them? So...ghosts? Hags? Demons?" Demons didn't exist, well, rather they kept to hell. He thought. Sometimes Rowland was glad his mother and father weren't here to see him mess up scriptures. 

Rebecca had been nodding along in agreement. There was no reason demons and angels couldn't exist if she and Rowland could be time traveling witches and wizards hunting a centuries old vampire who once commanded a dragon. 

Then she had to pause and ask, "Actually, do they have the same vision?"

Her hand curls on the bannister as she speaks with the torch as a prop. "I mean if you think about it, human visions vary from person to person, this one needing spectacles, that one blind. As we age our vision changes...worsens, whose to say vampires don't get better vision as they get older? We know they get physically stronger."   
  
And if Marcus was meeting other vampires to use them, well, they'd be younger than him, wouldn't they? Or else where did his authority come from? Unless he didn't have authority.  
  
...Which was what worried her.

"Admittedly I know very little about vampirism but I just assumed that after they turned they just...amplified everything. And even new vampires can see in total darkness can't they?" He turned his head to look over his shoulder again. There was that tingling sensation at the very back of his neck as if they were being watched. Maybe it was just paranoia, but he still had to check.  
  
"Normal vampires can't go out in the daylight, they hunt in darkness," he was giving himself the shivers just talking about. Vampires, werewolves, it was like a Van Helsing movie.  
  
He smiled as she kissed his cheek, though he wasn't exactly sure what he had said right this time, and tried to look around the room with whatever light the small torch provided. He wouldn't mind some night vision at the moment, if it didn't come with...well, everything else,  
  
The concept of Marcus meeting with other vampires, or calling them to meet, was one that frightened him. Marcus was beaten because he had been so wrapped up in being alone. Marcus with friends? Or at the very least acquaintances that shared a common goal? It was enough to make him scared shitless.  
  
But, no, of course he wasn't going to show it.

"Tony confirmed the woman Gina is dead though. He sounded happy about it on the phone. So," she drums her fingers along the rail, "the question is," idling on the bottom step and biting her lip.   
  
"Is this 1885 and Notre Dame took the place of the dragon, where everybody thinks they're safe because Claudia slash Gina is dead, but he got what he wanted all the same? Or did someone manage to trip him up, force the spectacle, kill his asset and cause him to be meeting with associates here?"  
  
He continues to follow, making sure to look behind him every once in a while (and above them, Kim had made him watch one too many horror movies), just in case.  
  
"I much prefer the latter," he answered after following her extended question, "but I have no clue."  
  
"Do you prefer that?" She asks quickly, trying not to betray the fact that she wants his reassurance. Smiling briefly as she thinks how sweet it was that Rowland would think that, of course he would, and how...much she loves him for that. Leaning to kiss his cheek just once, she pulls back and then steps off the stairs. As she speaks, she has her hand out searching for a switch -- or some place to light flames.   
  
"If something disrupted Marcus', not to mention collateral accidentally set Notre Dame aflame, if someone was actually capable of that...well then a, I'm not surprised that the names Brackner and D'Grey are in the paper...ah." She presses her hand over the switch. "And b, if when Marcus is in control he only throws a dragon at an innocent village," she flicks the toggle, until the anteroom illuminates around them to a spacious stone chamber.  
  
"Then what will he do when he has to take it...," she steps forward and braces her hips, warily and eyes wide, "back?"

His eyes adjust as Rebecca finally finds the light, he half expects to stand in some sort of bloody room with cadavers thrown about the room. Instead, it was empty.  
  
"Raise hell," he answered just as quietly as he stepped further into the room, clicking his torch off. As he looked around, he wondered.  
  
Raise hell. Tucking a curl behind her ear, Rebecca grits her teeth. The back don't touch from her overbite, and she sucks on her gum as she thinks: yeah, that about summed it up. Marcus bored was trouble they barely could equal out -- Marcus vengeful tended to mean certain death. But both had him entirely in control. The only time she had ever seen him out of control, had seen him properly frightened -- his teeth had sunk in her neck until she stabbed steel in his.   
  
It was not an experience she was keen on reliving.   
  
"Becca, do you happen to know how old this building is?"  
  
Taking a few steps forward, her heels echo on the stone. There were chairs, Victorian era at least from the curvature and make - a standing table that had only glasses left on it. Maybe she could convince herself it was only wine that had been on it. Rowland was right after all - newborns could see in the dark.   
  
Her hand trails over the chair back, lifts the cushion off it, coughing out dust. She was searching for paper, or a makers mark, anything--anything.   
  
"I don't...know exactly. A few centuries--I thought it was likely built around the time that he was. Born, I mean, not built. Obviously."  
  
With an exhale, she wrinkles her nose and pushes up off the chair, giggling in the dust as she realizes how ridiculous she sounded.   
  
"Why?" She looks backwards, "Do you?....or do you see something?"  
  
How exactly had Marcus had a meeting here where Rebecca could pick up a cushion and come away with dust that had accumulated for (apparently) more than a century? Did they move that lightly, leaving behind barely the faintest of traces? Because if so, they were going to have a hard time finding anything.  
  
Smiling as she giggled, it was hard not to, he gave a small chuckle of his own before stepping to the stone wall.  
  
"Because if it's old enough, and magic, it'll likely have an exit, or rather an entrance." He pointed up the stairs they had come from, and the narrow hallway.  
  
"That's the exit, it leads on to the street. An entrance, would lead further in, likely a home or what was a home. Maybe it's not just a secret room in the wall, but an entire secret passage, for quick escapes. Which could mean," he turned back to the wall, "that there's an opening here too. In Faye manor there is, or was, one where you had to push up against the right spot, and you'd fall right through."  
  
Her back cracks as she stands up and swipes the back of her hands off, wiggling a finger under her nose to clear the dust. Unzipping the jacket, her flowered blouse peeks beneath. It was just the dust that makes her cough, she tells herself, reminds herself: that was why she was getting hot.  
  
As Rowland spins to the wall, she nods idle, distantly remembering that and smiling proudly, not caring if it was premature. "Right..Brandin mentioned...I think he put a bookshelf in front of it, he said. Or maybe he thought he was being clever with the cliche." Nail flicking against her palm, she steps up to the wall after him, tracing her gaze along cracks in it.   
  
Rowland highly doubted that it was Brandin himself who put the bookshelf in front of it 150 years layers before any of his predecessors but sure, Rowland wasn't going to say otherwise. First, because he could be wrong, and second, because the male Faye ego was so fragile.  
  
"So if that's the case..." She pauses, looking back at the chairs and table, and glasses, eyes narrowed. "...I'm beginning to bet that was set up for us then. Marcus knew I could see him."  
  
She turns back to the wall, tutting against her teeth. "He also knew I got off the phone before they went anywhere. So, I bet you're right." Her hand goes over the wall. "Any ideas where to look?"   
  
He turned to look at Rebecca and the chairs and table again as she mentioned that was set for them. "Wouldn't be surprised," he muttered, miffed, "he's such a hospitable host." And probably in dire need to prove himself a few steps ahead. Speaking of egos...  
  
Hospitable, she laughs at once, a quick inhale and snort, eyebrows tweaking up in agreement. Then she laughs again: if Marcus was listening or watching, she wanted him to hear the fact they were more amused at the antics than frightened.   
  
"Emphasis on hospital if he had his way," Rebecca could not help her snark either. The thought of Marcus watching was sneaking shivers around her spine. "And he's not going to."   
  
Rubbing a hand across the back of her neck and tangling hair around her nails, she nods, following.   
  
"There's got to be some indication, otherwise people would forget where it was right?" With his hand on the wall, he started walking along it. "Some kind of mark, or clue. A pattern and then a break in the pattern? In the manor, you could tell because the suit of armor across the hallway carried a spear instead of a sword."  
  
"The dust," she says abruptly, smiling suddenly. "If the rest of the room is this dusty, wherever the fault is in the dust line, right? Show him trying to make us sneeze if this is the case.."   
  
Her hand floats behind Rowland's on the wall as she points.   
  
"Which it looks like it is, luv."   
  
Actually if he had his way Rowland would think morgue before hospital, but the thought was too serious a detail to bring up when they were just joking. As if they needed any reminder on how serious and perilous the situation actually was. While Rowland wasn't the kind for making jokes to ease the tension, he couldn't deny the need for a couple of tension relieving comments when the situation called for it.  
  
The dust! Rowland could have kissed her, and he did. One quick smooch before he looked again. She was right, the dust on the wall wasn't even. Patting his hand off on his trousers quickly, he raised the hand again and pushed it against the wall. It didn't go through it. Instead, the wall parted to allow him room. The more he pushed his arm in, the more it expanded, seemingly disappearing in itself.  
  
He turned to look at Rebecca, grabbing her hand with his free one. They'd go through it together. After a nod, he turned around and stepped forward, unable to wince even as he knew the wall would continue to separate to let him and Rebecca pass.  
  
A narrow passage was all that lay ahead, at the very far end, Rowland could make out another staircase. Torches, actual torches not the battery operated one he had in his pocket, lighted one by one as soon as they were both in and the wall behind them had closed. He'd almost set the torch on fire once.  
  
"Where do you think it'll lead?"  
  
Tucking her hand and fingers around Rowland's, Rebecca was instinctively comforted the moment they were touching as she ever was. More than a decade of marriage, a century of knowing each other, and she still knows her heart skips the moment he looked at her, let alone touched her.   
  
Falling through as he stepped with her, she catches her breath until they were through. Her eyes widen the moment she sees flames and turns her shoulder into Rowland's. Breathing out as she peers down the way, she shakes her head once.   
  
"Shh, wait -- do you hear something?"   
  
Voices coming from where they were supposed to keep walking, that wasn't a very appealing situation. It occurred to Rowland at that moment that he hadn't actually mentally prepared himself to find something at the end of this trail. Well, nothing alive and speaking. That probably wasn't very smart of him, but it was time to keep on trudging.  
  
It sounded like -- a door was being closed. Or opened? Quickly exchanging another look with Rowland, she didn't let his hand go, but starts down the hall on instinct. If it was Marcus or not, she'd still prefer a face to face conversation than feeling like she was stuck being watched.   
  
They keep walking down the hall together, the torches blowing out the moment they passed them, leaving only the ones ahead lighting their way and for the sake of not continuing to psych himself out, this time Rowland didn't look behind him.  
  
There was a sliver of light atop the staircase when she looked up, then starts up, trying to be quiet as they go when she hears -- and abruptly, breaks into a smile. Turning back to Rowland a few steps from the landing, she whispers,   
  
"That's Tony's voice."   
  
"You just can't help yourself, can you?" Olivier couldn't help retorting after Tony's smart remark, hand pulling out of his pocket. "I'm already aware of the hypocrisy, don't mention it." He added immediately.   
  
At least it was someone that Rebecca knew, well, met for one night but she apparently knew half his life story. Rowland couldn't say he was surprised, this was much more commonplace than one would think with Rebecca.  
  
"Well as long as you're aware, dear brother. After all it's so much better being stubborn than ignorant." Tony wasn't sure if that was entirely teasing.  
  
"Finally, you agree with me."   
  
Tony paused and then turned on his heels to face the hidden staircases, his eyebrows knitting together.   
  
"Company. Who else knows about this?"  
  
He hears it -- well, for arguments sake, Olivier decides to just say 'at the same moment' as Tony did, that someone was outside the door they'd just shut. (It was after all, cause for celebration that his brother's hearing was as attuned with his. If Olivier told himself it enough, he'd believe it). Pausing with his hand over glassware, he turns back.   
  
Who else knew about this? His bottom lip disappears in his mouth: the building was one of several such meeting places he was checking out. The secret entrance, though? It meant...well, as far as he was aware it meant that the knowledge had come from Marcus personally. This particular establishment formerly had their father - never someone to mention to Tony in casual conversation without expecting to at least stomach smart remarks he'd rather not hear just now - as secret keeper.   
  
His head shakes only half an inch from side to side, shoulder mid-shrug as he watches the door open, still speaking to his brother.   
  
"Whomever Ellwood told, I suppose -- ah."   
  
Sometimes he really just wanted to...shake Olivier by the shoulders really violently and have his head snap back and forth against a wall repeatedly while smacking him and yelling 'stop acting so cool!' Tony preferred to think that this was a normal sibling impulse, and chose not to think about what that might actually mean about him. Instead, he simply rolled his eyes and made a face.  
  
Oh, I'm Olivier Auguste D'Grey, I'm too smooth and cool to be bothered by daily trifles. An angry vampire with flames for hair is threatening me? That's nice. People were coming up from a secret passageway? Send them on up! Marcus Ellwood might be rallying the vampires to him? How dare he not invite -moi-? I'm going to comb my hair to get it perfectly coiffed and aerodynamic.  
  
See? Perfect imitation.  
  
There was recognition on the woman's face, but it was his brother she saw first. (What a shock, a beautiful dark-haired young woman recognized his brother with a sly smile on her lips). Except - ah, yup, that was a wedding band. Two, actually, as the couple's hands were tied very close together.  Both of their hearts were going very fast, he notes.   
  
"Actually," Rebecca couldn't help pointing out with a quirk to her lips, "in this instance, I don't believe Marcus had any intention of telling me." It was snide, as if Marcus ever wanted to inform her of anything. She did so insist always on finding it out. You went looking, you opened Pandora's Box. The man they were discussing's words ring in her ears, and so her eyes dart to her husbands.  
  
Rowland wasn't the one that stepped forward first. Rebecca came forward immediately, and Rowland followed, not wanting to keep away from her for too long especially when walking uninvited to a place where they weren't supposed to be. When did stepping forward unarmed to a bunch of almost-strangers seem like a good idea? But he trusted Rebecca implicitly, much more than he trusted himself actually.  
  
Tony's eyebrows rose and then wiggled as he saw who it was. This was a surprise! A pleasant one by all accounts, and oh look that was her husband!  
  
Not bad looking, a little gangly, long-limbed, and those ears would make Dumbo jealous but somehow it made sense. They clicked. Shame, small shame there but Tony got over it.  
  
After a comforting squeeze, she lets go and smiles back at Tony.   
  
"Luv, we really have to stop meeting like this."   
  
"But think of all the stories we have now about each other to share."  
  
Rowland chuckled, shaking his head. So, that was Tony then.   
  
It did seem they had quite a few stories to tell, but this time she was rather hoping and-slash-demanding that she actually get more from Tony than the opposite. After all, he had gotten almost the entirety of her love story with Rowland on the previous occasion. Had she not been absolutely positive, in that unfair way that she tended to abide by, that Tony had no intention of aiding Marcus - she wouldn't have said a word.   
  
Or, maybe she would have. Maybe she should have. Maybe she should somehow explain to Marcus that if she and Rowland could beat time, surely --  
  
No, but that was a very painful line of inquiry currently destined to go nowhere well. She chuckles and goes to take the elder D'Grey's hand, remembering easily enough what it was that had flashed through her mind in regards to him. Olivier can be saved. Tony had not been glad to hear it, she remembers, but not because he didn't want that to be true. He didn't want anyone else to know he did. It made him vulnerable...and worse (in Tony's mind), it might make his brother vulnerable.   
  
That sentence -- "we really have to stop meeting like this" -- clicks the final tumblr in an imaginary lock-pick in his mind, and Olivier finds a small smile on his lips too as he takes a stab in the dark.   
  
"Rebecca."   
  
"The one and only."   
  
"Actually --" Olivier starts, and she chuckles.   
  
Correcting for him, "Yes, yes, there are probably thousands of Rebecca's in the world - but still -"   
  
"Only one you." Olivier agrees, pleasantly enough even as he thinks: God (see, Tony, he's praying), he hopes so. "And if you are Rebecca..."   
  
Looking between the pair, he adds after a shake of his wrist rights the watch on it, a golden glint bouncing off the mirror behind him.   
  
"That must make you Rowland."   
  
Tony had told his brother about Rebecca too, as he recognized her almost immediately. What he was actually surprised was to hear that Tony's brother knew his name as well. He was surprised but ultimately pleased.  
  
"Yes, that's right," he stepped forward, offering his hand to shake with a smile, "hello. I'm sorry, I don't know your name."  
  
"Bongiorno," Olivier starts as he takes Rowland's hand, pleased and surprised to find a solid grip from the skinnier man, and then chuckles just once. Only one look to Rebecca confirms his suspicions (for the second time in a minute, he wants to brush his knuckles off his jacket).   
  
"Olivier. I assume I didn't have to tell you that." He answers, eyes still on Rebecca, who seems torn between smirking and apologizing. Curious.   
  
"Not really," she answers, settling on a small smile. "But I would have hidden it, if that would make you more comfortable."  
  
"Ah -- I think the truth would fare better, however much that might surprise you." Olivier says it simply, but Rebecca's eyebrow twitch makes it clear he was right: she knew exactly who he was. And still was there, still was shaking his hand...well, that was a welcome thought then.   
  
"Pleasure to meet you, Rowland." He continues, releasing his hand.   
  
Tony's face had been uneasy for a moment seeing Rebecca, Olivier noted, but it cleared lightning quickly. Still, a pang echoes in his chest as he wonders what she might have said. This was why he didn't really enjoy Seers.   
  
When it came to Marcus Ellwood, on the other hand...  
  
Tony smirked, licking his lips and then turning to look at Olivier. He took maybe a little too much entertainment from the small instances when people didn't know who they were meeting. Well, Rebecca had his last name, so her husband probably did know who he was, or rather what he went by but why spoil the fantasy?  
  
"Hey, yeah," Tony brought his hand out too after Rowland had turned to him, "Antonio, but you can call me Tony."  
  
"Yes, the one who got my wife drunk," Rowland commented idly enough.  
  
"Technically," he put a hand up to his face, shielding his mouth as he stage-whispered, "she got me drunk.  
  
"Oi." Rebecca protests, teasing and bright as Tony stage-whispers.   
  
"I would apologize for him," Olivier stage whispers as well instantly, hand up on the other side with a smirk on his face, "but then I'd never get done - and he might hurt me."   
  
Olivier wasn't entirely joking about that either, but he passes it off easily with a chuckle. Better to let them think that - except Rebecca clearly widened her eyes.   
  
She looks to Olivier, as if to ask if this was a common occurrence and then simply can't help herself from turning around the room, looking. This looked far more...well. 'Right.' A meeting place of some kind, definitely.   
  
"You paid," Rebecca says right back, hand up with her smile genuine, "...and don't hurt your brother, please."


	36. Carnival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First there is desire  
> Then... passion!  
> Then... suspicion!  
> Jealousy! Anger! Betrayal!  
> Where love is for the highest bidder,  
> There can be no trust!  
> Without trust,  
> There is no love!  
> Jealousy.  
> Yes, jealousy...  
> Will drive you... mad!

That...was quite the image.  
  
Ankles crossed, "The Winds of Winter" upside down and airborne, gold hair sprawled like ropes touching the carpet, skirt mini and hiked high on her thigh (and nearly see-through) -- Stefanie lays backwards on their couch. It took him two looks to be certain it was real; first he walked right by, stopped, and then walked slowly backwards to look. He was close to whistling. It would just...require air.   
  
Tony had been out on his 'super secret brothers' mission, but Stefanie wasn't allowed to go. There was something about Marcus Ellwood involved. You'd think they'd have utilized her aid, considering he was -her sire-, but then, she has another reason Tony wouldn't have wanted her there.   
  
Her smirk starts twisting up as she hears his heart jumpstart, skip and then his slow backwards walk back watching her.   
  
Eyes meeting his again, she adds in the same bemused hot hiss of a whisper as the smirk on her lips, "Jealous of Marcus, Snow?"  
  
Tony would have kept admiring the visual in complete silence, after all Stefanie was just so obviously goading him. He wouldn't be surprised if she had just recently taken up reading in that position, not that he was complaining. He even bit back a retort about how if this is how she was getting through The Damphair's chapters. He would have kept his mouth shut.  
  
And then she said he was jealous, and his silence was ended.  
  
"Why because he got to kill you?"  
  
 He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. "I haven't been -that- mad at you." If he had a drink, this is where he would take a sip. Alas, his hand was empty, so he slapped it against his thigh instead as he stepped forward.  
  
"You just let me know if that changes," she retorts instantly, knuckles bone-white on the snowy cover, "I'll be sure to let you snap my neck if so."  
  
"How considerate of you," he replied in false cheer, shaking his head. He had already snapped too many necks for one lifetime, he almost said out loud, and the worst part was that it didn't look like he had snapped his last neck during that purge of Notre Dame.  
  
"No, sweetness, I'm not. Why? Did you fuck him? I can't be too sure but that's a standard vampire initiation right?"  
  
Turning the page, she rolls her eyes. Oh, how lucky was she. It was every girl's dream to be treated so! Called a whore and sweetness in the same breath.  
Laying the book over her chest now, she flexes her ankle as if considering.  
  
"Now Tony, a lady never tells."  
  
"Oh yeah sure, that's right," he nods, lips pursed and then turns around, calling over his shoulder as he steps, "let me know when you see one."  
  
"Rude." Stefanie's word drip with that so-named sweetness as she pouts her lips together. It's only certainty he'll call her a brat again that keeps her from sticking her tongue out. "And after I was so considerate a moment ago."  
  
Irritated and guilty she adds in spite, "At least I'd wake. Have you told your brother, by the way? How many of his prospective employees you killed after I'd stunned them? I'd say good job, but...it is a bit of a sticky compliment, isn't it?"  
  
Stefanie knew all the right things to say to get him to turn back around. His steps slowed and an exhale left his lips before he turns around again, arms crossed in front of his chest.  
  
"Sixteen. Ten of which were actually his previous employees. Do you want their names? I can give them to you, what's your point?" He didn't expect it to be a secret. Like he'd said before, Olivier didn't miss a trick and apparently Stefanie was more observant than she let on. Well, that was always true.  
  
Hearing his slow, measures steps down the few stairs, Stefanie grits her teeth to keep from inhaling. Her mouth waters anyway. So she offers, tiniest bit softer, "I know he didn't ask you to, but I'm angry. You shouldn't have to kill like that for him. Especially," Stef scoffs and uncrosses her ankles again, "as he doesn't appreciate it."  
  
He pursed his lips together as she noted even more observations about why he did it. Tony cleared his throat and shrugged, "Let me worry about that."  
  
"You know my point, Tony." Stefanie scoffs under her breath, abruptly reaching to close her (well, his) book again and shimmy. She still doesn't turn around, expecting half the reason he hadn't left at her words was an underlying enjoyment of the spectacle. So, even as she echoes him and folds her arms over her chest, she's looking at him sideways and three-quarters upside down. "You never wanted to kill a living soul. Your father doesn't count, obviously for as you love reminding me - he wasn't a living soul."  
  
And now he'd killed a little over twenty, in the past few weeks. Did she think he needed a reminder or could she not see the planet-sized chip on his shoulder?  
  
Voice catching as she tries to force his scent out with her exhale: it was so sweet, so cloying, so perfect--she was choking. (Or maybe that was the underlying truth in his jibe.)  
  
Stefanie rubs under her lip, still eying him irritably but only adds softer, "I don't need the names. I don't need to know what they'd done. I trust you, Tony." Heels click together, crossed.    
  
She still hadn't moved, or if she had barely, from her odd position on the couch. It did make him feel a little better to hear the same tone express that she trusted him, even if he was having a tough time swallowing that truth.  
  
Her words were sardonic at their obvious irony.  
  
"After all I'm the one here to keep from being a monster."  
  
That was the irony wasn't it? Antonio Laurent D'Grey, eternally worried over the soul of the woman in front of him when he had successfully damned himself to the deep bowels of hell. How could he possibly hope to still have God's ear after all this killing he'd done in the name of what was better? If he was God, he'd be tired of himself too.  
  
Stefanie unfolds her arms now, toying with ropes of golden hair as she continues quietly.  
  
"Doesn't mean you can tell me not to be worried about it. You didn't want to -- it wasn't your choice. And I didn't want it for you either." Maybe a little hypocritical, but there was a difference between wanting something better for someone and literally holding them back.  
  
Fingering the page, she adds quieter, "If I did fuck Marcus." Lord, her throat was dry, "would you care?"  
  
Stefanie denies the fact there was genuine curiosity in the question, let alone want. The trouble is, high-on-blood Tony was just as capable of hearing her subtleties as she was of him.  
  
This question should have been easier to answer, Tony thinks. A simple yes, or a simple no, that would have been easy.  
  
"Wait, hold on, does this mean I'm allowed to care again? Here I thought you were the one woman army who don't need no man and don't keep me locked in towers!" He smirked and then looked around the room pointedly.  
  
"Well it's not a tower."  
  
Abruptly, Stef laughs.  
  
"That would make you the evil Queen or old hag holding me prisoner, because their jealous of everyone else even looking at me. So," Stef brightens, "you're saying you -are- jealous!"   
  
"Don't confuse the fact that I would rather set myself on fire than have you talk to Marcus again as jealousy. The same can be said for all psychopaths you have a soft spot for." Antonio D'Grey, get jealous? Pah. Have you looked at him? What more could anybody else offer?  
  
You know, except a stable home, an acceptable lifestyle, strong moral codes, and deep emotional attachment unburdened by overwhelming parent-issues?  
  
"I'm not mistaking anything," Stefanie says when he doesn't say anything for a beat, eyes narrow.   
  
"Ah--how could I? You try to set yourself on fire so rarely, I could never dream of mistaking the reason."   
  
Sarcasm rang in her ears as she swiveled her way around, tempted into a somersault off the couch. (Maybe then he wouldn't see her wince). Hair and skirt swish around as she pushes over, a blur of white, tan and gold. Triumphant to stand back on the floor, she promptly falls back into the couch as if exasperated to exhaustion. Her leg crosses her knee again to let her ankle bounce, her eyes were ice as they stay locked on him.  
  
Nine points for the dismount, he thought as he watched her get off the couch and land back on the floor. Ten for sticking the land. Minus one for falling back down. Ah, well, no one was perfect. Tony learned that a long time ago.  
  
"You still haven't answered my question," she reminds him, chewing softly on her bottom lip.   
  
Why did it even matter his answer to the question? Ugh! Exasperation- 42% and steadily rising.   
  
"Which I suppose is an answer. Do you care? And how can you act like the only way I'd want you to show it is you hurting yourself again -- when I just answered with the fact I am concerned for your sake in the same breath?"    
  
Stef shrugs, exaggerated, and swears her unmoving heart aches to skip a beat.   
  
"So much for equality."  
  
"Yes Stefanie, because everything I do in my life I do with you in mind," he spoke sardonically, mostly to cover up the underlying truth in his sentence. Not the entire truth, but part of one.  
  
Know what Irene says? What you say sarcastically you mean genuinely with at least a third of you, Stef aches to say, only she won't take lines from her genius fellow blonde bombshell (whatever nickname slash title she prefers this week). Lady or not, Stefanie Ricard has more class than petty theft for wit, not to mention she won't dishonor her friend.  
  
(All right, fine, and maybe she doesn't know what to say to the fact he was thinking about her that frequently.)  
  
Her eyebrows steadily arching and frown lines steadily appearing with his rapid-fire increase of heartbeat, she doesn't move at first. She can't trust herself to. Innate jealousy seemed to be their lot: only in this affair she craves his heart rather uh - er - ...literally. Stef licks her bottom lip.  
  
"What do you want me to say? That I care if you fuck him? Or fuck anyone else? Yes, it bothers me. Yes, I'd prefer you didn't. Yes, I know, I have no right so no, I wouldn't stop you. Go have sex with half of Pari, just try not to drain anybody. Meanwhile, I might go do the same. There," he dropped his hand which he had been using to gesture between the both of them, "equality at its finest."  
  
Oh for heavens' sakes, she wants to spit, eyes rolling up to the ceiling and head hitting the back of the couch. Battle number...what number were they on, anyway? Her nose wrinkles, her arms fold on her chest, and she huffs.  
  
"No, you don't have that right - but if you ever want to, Tony," her hand is flat as she flaps it after him, striking the air, "don't you think you'd have to tell me that first? Granted!" Stef stands, pushes off the couch as if it were difficult to rise when really she just wanted to hit something.   
  
"I do know I would have to ask first, do you see me asking?" His eyebrows rose as he started talking back defensively after she began snapping and walking forward.  
  
"In the interest of not being a hypocrite." Her hand hits her thigh as she steps forward. "I don't like the fact it's clear you'd fuck Chantel in a heartbeat, I don't want to screw all of Pari, or half of it or any of it," she stops walking, feet away from him and staunch, deciding continue to breathe is problematic.   
  
To be completely fair, he hadn't wished to make his attraction to Chantel or desire to fuck her a secret, so he couldn't really give her brownie points for noticing.  
  
He'd have to borrow Daniella/Shipton's words for the moment.   
  
"Life is short, and she is hot." Well, life was short for him. Didn't he get brownie points for not saying that out loud?  
  
"But mostly I feel guilt, magnified to a hundredth thanks so much to the transformation, because there -is- something I didn't tell you, one thing," she points to the ceiling, "that's it, one, you know everything else which I certainly am not obligated to do, nor tell you this one thing, but." Her hand slaps her thigh again, then cuts in and braces her hip. "It's not like you hadn't told me everything. Before you buried me, I mean, before," her voice drops abruptly, chords tight and wanting, "you threw a laurel crown of blue roses on the ground and declared me dead. No, Tony, I didn't fuck Marcus. Not that night, not any. I did fuck Ansel."  
  
The comment about feeling guilty had him eyeing Stefanie warily and with confusion. He was hard-pressed to believe that he didn't know just one single thing, but he didn't question it. And then the bomb dropped.  
  
His breath remained steady but he couldn't say the same for his heartbeat. Utterly unfair, that no matter what he said, there was no covering up that skipped beat. It felt like when you were sleeping and you feel like you're about to fall so your legs shuffle underneath to try and find steady ground. Kind of like that.  
  
He chuckles, exhaling a burst of air through his nose and nodding his head. This was a little funny, he'd explain why.  
  
"This is quite poetic, you know. He turns on your brother and you turn into a vampire...was it the same night? Pretty damn close, I imagine. But not before you had shared one final piece of your former selves together. Twin flames, now that's romantic."  
  
Stefanie didn't know what she expected, telling him. Perfectly honest? She hadn't given it much thought - rather, him much thought (talk about unwanted poetry). It had never been guilt over it happening, because she slept with him. Only that Tony didn't know. She felt guilty, now she didn't. Now she felt...  
  
Infuriated. Hot, like she hadn't been since the night in question, burning from the inside. Tony had a witty, snarky comment for the world that hated him - but she didn't, goddammit, and she didn't like being treated as though she did.  
  
Well, maybe she did right now.  
  
He smirked briefly before raising a finger, asking in wonder, "Do you think after he became alpha he mounted one of his bitches in celebration? Because what a parallel that would be! Yes, I did just insinuate I'd be the bitch in our scenario, but I already call you mistress so, seems appropriate." He kept his smirk raised, what a feat, he'd drink to that later.  
  
Rising with unnecessary breaths adding gasoline to her internal rage, she throws a hand up and turns. "Oh--," Stef snaps, "fuck you, Tony."   
  
Strides echo hard heels on the marble as she turns again, again, again. Can't she just keep repeating that? Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. Trouble was, she knew she wanted to do that already.  
  
"Did you tell him you love him too? Should have, now that your species are mortal enemies, then again I suppose it would make for some fantastic foreplay."  
  
Stefanie spins back, hand coming striking diagonal from her hip. If anyone could find a way to hit the air, it was her. (Or Tony.)  
  
"Yes, obviously I did, because you just kn-- ha!" Oh God, they were them after all. "You know nothing, Antonio D'Grey." See? She has witty remarks too.  
  
"Yeah sure baby, should I get in line? Isn't it Ansel's turn now?" His eyes narrowed and his eyebrows furrowed but his smirk didn't move from place even as she went on with her explanation. Oh and what a thrilling explanation it really was. This was utterly priceless and apparently quite tragic. He knew nothing? He knew a couple of things, like where to put it.  
  
"I'm not," Stefanie couldn't even take that as a joke - as anything but a massive affront to her, "a fucking carnival coaster."  
  
'I don't have to explain myself to you,' she wants to start and end and maybe add another fuck you, maybe actually fuck him, except she hears something else come out of her mouth first.  
  
"Poetic? It's tragic." Stefanie's arms fold on her chest, literally to restrain herself from leaping on to him. "Ansel should," her chin jabs the air, "be alpha --actually he never should have been a wolf in the first place but he made that choice. So," and now her chin lifts and she pretends she's still only speaking of Ansel. "I respect that."  
  
Oh how quaint, more parallels. Ansel had chosen to be a monster of the night just like Stef! Forgive him if he couldn't respect the fact that they'd had a choice and had chosen wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!  
  
Her eyes were slits. "He's the only one in the bloody pack that didn't killed anyone at that blasted Gala, hasn't killed anyone in fact, since he gained that potion for control. He hated the Death Eaters as much as you did. Ansel's broken, of course he fucking is, and he's an asshole, but it doesn't change the fact that he should be alpha. Nor did it change the fact that my darling brother would have killed him for challenging him."  
  
Well, now he wished Ansel and Hans had somehow managed to kill each other and just rid him of two headaches. Problem was that would be officially two more people for Stefanie to mourn, two more reasons to lose control of her humanity. Fuck it all.  
  
"So!" She slaps at her thighs, "I couldn't help from wanting him to do what was right. So there I was, leading him to the slaughter. It had nothing to do with you, had nothing to do with claiming alpha dominance-- it isn't poetic. If he's fucked anyone else, I wouldn't know. Ask Irene, she might. Or she might be the one who--"   
  
If Ansel had laid a hand on Irene too, Tony -would- kill him, mourning be damned.  
  
Okay, that was off topic. Stefanie rubs over her face, knowing veins were crawling across her skin.  
  
"Not the point. He did what was right. Just, by the way, like I want you to tell your brother you won't fucking tolerate this business of his -- or at least you won't kill for him, but see, I know you won't tell him that. So yeah, Tony, once again I can't keep my mouth shut -- or my legs, you'd think I'd have learned by now, it's just -God-(!)," she wasn't bitter, honestly, just smirking and feeling her heart fall into her stomach, "do I love getting fucked."   
  
By the end of that speech, he just snorted. Half of him wanted to tear off her skirt, bend her over the couch and fuck her like she'd just said she loved until she'd lost her voice. Maybe a little more than half.  
  
The other less than half of him couldn't be in the room anymore, and was nowhere near as dominant to be able to actually go through with anything.  
  
"Modern woman," he gestured before shrugging, lifting his eyebrows. "Well now that you have that weight off your chest, you can go fuck yourself."  
  
He grabbed his coat on the way out of the room, slipping it on.  
  
He was seething, she could see - hear - almost taste, oh she wanted to taste, God let her resist that temptation, or actually, God just let her taste. No. Wait.  
  
Stefanie's head was spinning. He was walking away. Like Ansel had the next morning, like Hans had that night -- dammit, no. She rubs across her forehead hard, rocking on her heels, tossing gold hair strands away before they decide to wrap around her neck and choke her. Further. She couldn't breathe -- wait.   
  
She didn't need to.  
  
As he turns, she darts forward, quick as a blink - hand going to wrench his (warm, so warm) neck around, spin him as she refuses to grab him the way he'd grabbed her that night.  
  
But not that day. That day was precious, and it couldn't be touched by the later tragedies, she wouldn't let it. If only because...Tony had enough terrible birthdays for one lifetime.   
  
She kept speeding until she hit a wall with him - forgetting to stop. Tony was let go instantly as she knew he was just as strong, but doesn't she doesn't move away. He grit his teeth together as she ran into him, turning around immediately, looking into her eyes. His anger couldn't remain focused when he looked at her that deeply. The exasperation and frustration remained, that part was too heavily ingrained as he struggled to control his heartbeat and his breathing.  
  
Truth was, once he was turned, she didn't know what she wants. Predominant was the fact she not make him give her his back. Achieved, she's thoughtless. But not speechless. Definitely not speechless.  
  
"I thought you didn't want to give me your back." The statement is almost a question.   
  
He couldn't even come up with anything to say, so he ignored it, knowing perfectly well that ignoring something doesn't make it go away, but that he would be content in pretending it was for the moment.  
  
"Don't leave. I jus-- don't leave. This -- what I said -- it bothers you. And I said it because you with her -- it bothers me. If you care," her voice drops low, "as you say you do." Stef inhales, and for one moment doesn't think of his delicious scent.   
  
She told him not to leave, weakening his resolve. After all, it was less than half of him that had been pulling him into walking out.   
  
Her mind was screaming back to what he said, echoing in her ear: 'you don't see my asking, do you?', wondering why and dreading, dreading the answer. Blue eyes wide even rimmed with red and mouth open, she will not think of the word desperate. She will not.  
  
"Then why don't you ask?"  
  
'Bother' was an insufficient word for it. Yeah, he cared, he cared a lot.  
  
"Because I'm angry with you. Because you're angry with me. Because I'm the reason you lost Marcel. Because I don't trust myself around you. Because you still have feelings for Ansel, because in 70 years I'll be dead or dying and you'll be just as you are now. Infuriating, exasperating, snippy, spiteful, strong, deadly, intelligent, beautiful and young. Because you changed from embodying the hope of me ever having a quasi-normal, happy life to a reminder that 'normal' is something I can never be or have. And because on top of all of that I will never, never, be worthy enough to even ask." He swallowed, licking his dry lips and shaking his head.  
  
"Even one of those would have been reason enough."  
  
It really is a perk, Stef thinks as she listens, not needing to breathe. Her eyes search his. Unblinking, infuriated -- she was caught, so caught. Deciding to let his skipped heartbeat - the one from earlier, the one that still echoes in her mind as proof and comfort his words weren't given - stand for them both, Stef goes on her toes.  
  
Hot breath mingled, his necessary, and hers stolen out of habit, out of greediness for she no longer needed air for lungs that didn't work.  
  
Oh, heavens was she right to dread his list. Her hands land on the wall, plant on either side of his head. Breathing quietly, (it seems there were just some habits she wouldn't learn to break) she shares his (hot) air, lips hovering close -so close- without touching. Her neck bends forward soundlessly, nose tracing the air around his as she watches his mouth. Though they in effect take the same space in the shadow of a marble column, an intimate enclosure, they do not touch. Only their breath tangles, fingers and nose dancing around each other. Stefanie will not touch. She doesn't dare.  
  
"That list?" She asks rhetorically, tongue swiping her top lip to taste his exhale carefully, then cracks a smile. "...rivals my lists  to Kris Kringle."  
  
The title mistress was not one that had been blindly or casually given. She had a natural dominance even before she had any actual power to exert that dominance. She was also an excellent teaser. If anyone knew how to draw out a single moment over the course of what felt like a lifetime, it was Stefanie.  
  
Her eyes shut as her smile cracks wider; it seems more important, too important, to simply take the moment to breath with him. Does skin have memories? For she knew he couldn't pebble her smooth and pink expanse in anticipation any longer - but in that moment she swears she feels the sweet, sensitive burn.  
  
"I am angry at you. You are angry at me. You are not the sole or paramount reason my brother died. I, trust you around me, more than I ever trust myself to be alone and - it seems to me if I were not here, or you are alone you might set yourself on fire."  
  
She was as apt as tearing into his list and tearing it to shreds as she was at tearing into his flesh with fangs that filed into a deadly point. She went through each point, one by one, dissecting it under a careful scrutiny. And she raises her hand, and he wishes she'd grab his cheek plainly instead of ghost around it.  
  
"I do still feel for him. I also left him, and he left me. I have a past as you do, and baggage as you do. Last I checked," Stefanie tilts her head the other way, nose narrowly avoiding his, still whispering, "it isn't possible to know the next seventy years. Even if it were, I still prefer that romantic notion of all we have is right here and right now."  
  
Hands slip forward as if to cradle his shadow on the wall, her eyes open and hold his.  
  
"You aren't normal. I'm sorry I have to remind you of that, but I am not just some...symbol, to you Tony. I'm a person. A living, breathing right now, in front of you - person. And I'm just a little confused at the present moment, why the lack of a quasi-normal life should mean you're incapable of a happy one. Let alone unworthy."  
  
Stefanie lifts a hand from the wall, fingers passing over the air on his cheek. She smiles as it raises a flush.   
  
Finally he can exhale again, and swallow as Stefanie looks at him. He wished he had more than still silence to offer her words. Typical as ever, Tony could rant a pretty speech, but he had a hard time following it up.  
  
"And you are worthy, Tony. You are, as infuriating, sassy, deadly, overprotective, even cowardly, you are or were -- you are. You're a good brother - a fantastic, brother. You care about what's right even knowing the odds -- you're ever willing to damn yourself, if it means saving others. Truth be told." She swallows on a raw throat, eyes flicking to search his gaze. Then she adds, resolute, quiet and kind, "I've never met anyone more worthy than you."  
  
Stefanie swears for a second, her heart skipped.  
  
Then...  
  
"But...," she exhales, "...you have to believe that for yourself."  
  
Her hand starts to pull back -- but only starts.  
  
Seeing her hand pull back made his heart drop again and he caught it -her hand not his heart, that continued to plummet- momentarily frightened for a reason he didn't wish to put to words.  
  
"I miss how warm you were," he managed on a throat that seemed shrunk in size. "And there's not a part of me that can even begin to wonder how to stop being angry with you for choosing this." He brushed the pad of his thumb across her knuckles.  
  
He caught her. Well, her wrist, which she looks at abruptly, smile flickering with delight and surprise as she feels...safe, for one blinding hot moment. Then he speaks and her hand clenched into a fist, eyes darting back to his.   
  
"I'm angry, all, the time. And I don't want to be."  
  
Stefanie was glad she looks back. And I miss when you listened -- she was about to say, or something cleverer, something wittier that didn't hurt so much. Then she sees the hurt in his eyes, and she presses her lips together. There's a want in her throat that's hunger unfamiliar, an ache in her chest anything but sweet, but God she feels sore.  
  
"Why are you angry?" She asks instead, quiet, still unblinking. "It was my choice, I'm glad you know that," her thumb brushes over his as well, throat still dry, "...what is it, about what I did, that makes you so mad? Is it your father? Or--or--..." She shakes her head. "What did you...lose?"  
  
She brings her other hand up, taking his wrist too before she adds quieter, "If I know, maybe I can help you be less angry."  
  
He didn't know why he had said it aloud. Most likely because of a lack of anything else to say. She had been pulling back like he had before, and he'd stop her like she had, but they both stalled on what to do after that. Chasing after someone is all well and dandy, exhilarating and exciting, but what do you do when you had them in your hold?  
  
"I don't know how else to say it, Stef, I've been yelling it at you since you got here," he exhaled again, staring at their hands while his eyebrows furrowed. She gave everything up and for what? A bloodlust and some superhuman strength.  
  
"You've been yelling at me since I got here," Stefanie confirms, dropping the central and vague 'it' from his sentence that made her point. He'd given her half a dozen reasons for his anger (half a hundred), but it was hard to believe he was permanently furious around her all the time because she wanted to skip Davos chapters or made a joke about JT's hair.  
  
(No, it was the snark between them - the "you obviously thought this through" and "I'm the one in danger of becoming a monster, obviously" - that hurt the most).  
  
"If I could stop being a hybrid I would do it in a heartbeat. The heightened senses, the strength, and especially the bloodlust, I would give it all up because its done nothing but bring me misery. And you chose into this, into something worse. That's not something you can help me through.  
  
I lost..." his eyebrows knitted further together as he looked back up into her eyes, his face dropping, following his heart which seemed in a permanent free fall. Tony was almost wishing for the ground to make an appearance.  
  
"Hope. I lost hope."  
  
Or she thought it was their snark...until he speaks again and she feels her face break open, a dam on floodgates of emotion. Her eyes shut until she thinks she can control the rushing want in her throat.  
  
"I'm sorry you did. That...is the cruelest thing to lose." Stefanie whispers as her eyes open again. As she frees one hand and finally takes his cheek, it's obvious she speaks from experience.  
  
His chest rose and then fell with a deep breath as she cupped his cheek with her hand. Tony swallowed potentially overwhelming emotion down a dry throat, practically choking it down so he wouldn't have to keep appearing so damn vulnerable anymore.  
  
Unsticking her throat and brushing her thumb over his cheek she ponders for a moment, and then --   
  
"Your hybrid abilities. Aren't they the reason Olivier is alive today? Them, and the fact that Claude trained you? It's a funny merge, really...vampire's son and hunter's prodigy, Antonio D'Grey." A smile cracks across her face again. "The latter being more important, obviously."  
  
Obviously. She repeats herself because it bore saying twice, even if only internally.  
  
Stefanie wasn't one to let Tony drown in his sorrows. She stopped him from walking out to what was sure to have been a night full of angry drinking and potentially revenge sex, she threw the list of reasons why he couldn't ask her to be his in his face, and now was telling him why he was wrong to want to give up who he was. If he were a more ego-centric man, his resentment towards her would be growing.  
  
Not that he wasn't annoyed, but he was more thankful than anything else. Who said he had the emotional maturity of a 12 year old? It was clearly, at least, 15.  
  
"But because you do come from both...I should think..." Her hand stills as she searches her gaze, "Why can't it be a good thing? Why -can't- you take these things and just...make them a force for good?"  
  
There should be a pause, but Stefanie continues quickly, realizing she was scared to hear his answer.  
  
"I wouldn't, you know." And then she forestalls his obvious, immediate misunderstanding, "I don't mean my abilities. Yours."  
  
Her thumb tucks in the crook of his jaw. "I lost hope too, Tony. I did, in my brother, my friends, me -- I lost everything and I saw how...you might struggle, you might bear an...unbelievable, incredible weight but you..."  
  
She nearly bites her bottom lip as she thinks how to phrase, then dry chuckles.  
  
"...You also threw your older brother into the ceiling to test your strength and have orange and blue handprints up there forever. From spite, yeah, but also because of how much you love your brother." Another chuckle. "That's you. I wouldn't change one hair. My present concern is..." Her throat sticks again before she speaks quietly. "I'm scared you're so angry you're losing sight of it.  
  
And she was right. In a sense, his abilities led to him meeting Claude and saving his brother (not that Remington would have killed Olivier, just him) and led to handprints on a ceiling, and possibly a variety of other events that he simply couldn't remember at that moment.  
  
Tony was also glad he didn't have time to think on her question either. Why couldn't he make it good? He suspected whatever the answer, it would only serve to highlight another one of his faults.  
  
"People change," he answered easily enough, now noticing he had brought a hand up to cover her own, most likely to hold it there. "And hair sheds, you know, technically." He swallowed the attempt at humor as well.  
  
Oh he would just argue technicalities at first. Of course he would.   
  
"Ha ha," she says first, rolling her eyes as if to examine his hairline critically. She hmms playfully, only for a second.But Stefanie was more focused on how he had placed a hand over his and she straightens, leans closer to him to steal another exhale and brush her nose against his. Nuzzling was a much easier answer to give to any of either of their questions.  
  
"I can't lose sight of who I am, because I've never known who that is, no one knows that about themselves." He licks his dry lips again when he notices how hoarse his voice has gotten.  
  
"I guess I'll just have to find hope again," he spoke quietly before asking, "have you?"  
  
His question gave her pause, and she lowers their joined hands to toy with the flap of his leather jacket. Hedging, "I don't know yet. Maybe. It's a tall order. But I've..." Her voice cracks, but only once, "I've seen goodness again, yes. And I've seen it in you -- I've always seen it and fine you can call it a soft spot for psychopaths or whatever you want, but that, is what I don't want you to lose.   
  
She clenches her teeth, and then says softer, fingers clenching his cheek, almost too hard. "But." She clears her throat. "There were thirty-three people in those dungeons and others in the safe houses alone that you helped save. Including reuniting Harper and his wife and son -- and Eliza, who would not be here without you--yes, I have hope, I do." She worked herself into sounding stronger.  
  
It had been too much to hope for her answer to somehow include him so he didn't even bother. It turned out he should have, because she did mention him, seeing good in him despite everything.   
  
"Sixteen people, Tony. Sixteen."  
  
Sixteen people she had said, and that was true. His gaze flicked down to the floor briefly before he met her eyes again. They were also sixteen criminals who had kidnapped, tortured, and killed. Ten of Olivier's former employees, four who had held places of considerable trust. People like that were not easily replaced, and would give Olivier a harder time to get his business up and running like it used to.  
  
He liked to think that Olivier would be proud in the middle of his jaw clenching anger.  
  
But months ago he had been advocating against any one person deciding who lives and who dies. His words to Stefanie about never claiming to not being a hypocrite came to mind.  
  
Tony was glad that Stefanie mentioned the people he had helped save, the same way she had told the judgey little witch the same, but it didn't erase what he had done. He'd pay for that.  
  
He looks at his feet when she says 'sixteen people' and even a moment is enough for her to see his distress with himself. The ache reappears in her dry throat (had it ever left?)  
  
"Hey." Her hand moves to his lips, touches the tips so she can lift his gaze. They were dry to the touch, yet soft, pliant...warm. Just as she said. "I forgive you. And we can pray for them in Church tomorrow morning."  
  
If he still wanted to go with her. But then, she wasn't giving him much choice, was she? He did care. She knew it. She used it.   
  
(Stefanie doesn't blame him for his resentment, honestly. It balances with how she won't blame him for Marcel.)  
  
It was a kind gesture, but it wasn't her forgiveness that he needed, even if it helped considerably. Tony nodded at her suggestion, knowing that it wouldn't be the only thing that he prayed for.  
  
"As to..." She shuts her eyes again, counts to twelve, then speaks.  
  
"You're warm." As her eyes open, she quirks her lips up and adds, "Hot, actually. Around you I...I don't feel so cold. And when we..." she smirks, "...you get hotter."  
  
There's another silent moment where she simply holds his gaze.  
  
"All those reasons you just gave me. Do you still want to ask in spite of them?"  
  
Stefanie went silent for a few drawn out moments before she commented on the fact that he was still warm, and apparently warm enough for the both of them. A lazy smirk crept up to his face as she alludes to the fucking she so loved (except he couldn't go back there; he was still angry about that). Instead, he met her gaze and wasn't surprised to find a very clear answer leave his lips without hesitance.  
  
"Yes," he whispered, as if it was a dear secret he was frighteningly parting with. "I do."  
  
The thought is chased away with all else as - just as she said...Tony lit her up, made her feel so, so warm. He did want to ask her to be his. In spite of everything, he still wanted it. She smiles, and works her ass off to make sure it wasn't sad.  
  
"Then," Stefanie whispers in the same voice he did, the same desperate want (and yet not) need (but never) and hope (wasn't that lost?). Her hand cradles his cheek, nail scratching down the side of his nose as she continues.   
  
"I hope," her lips quirk up, "you find a way to be less angry with me. Because I won't answer an unasked question, Tony. But I want you to ask...if you ever, feel comfortable enough, feel safe enough, to do so."  
  
Maybe it was foolish of him to still want to be with Stefanie. For all of those reasons, and for plenty more. But when had he ever done what was smart for him?  
  
He already had the feeling she wouldn't answer him, because technically he didn't ask, and even more technically, he knew he wasn't prepared to. Not right now, not until he calmed down (maybe rip out Ansel's heart by reaching down his throat), not until he was in a better place.  
  
She leans in, pressing her lips to his cheek and lingers there a long moment, eyes shut. It was tempting - so tempting - to think of the cinnamon-tasting wine running rivers beneath his skin, that she has to clear her throat and pull back. Her face is screwed up in unease as she realizes she doesn't want to tell him (as if her eyes hadn't already) the truth: she was hungry.   
  
"Sorry, I'm -- "  
  
(Starving, actually, the blood bags ran out two days ago).  
  
Now it's her turn to look at her heels, nervously tugging a curl behind her ear.  
  
It took all his strength not to turn his head at the kiss on his cheek and capture her lips with his own. The more she lingered, the more his resolve lessened, but she pulled back before he could do anything. When he saw her eyes he realized another reason she might have been lingering so near his neck.  
  
She was hungry.  
  
"When did you feed last?" He wondered, his tone lacing with concern.  
  
Her head darts back up instantly, the move smooth as the skin her gaze darts across. His neck was like satin, she remembers - or...maybe she still has a hand ghosting across it (him, dammit, this was Tony). Oh.   
  
Pulling another step back, she shuts her eyes and just answers, flat.   
  
"Two days. I thought there were more bags...then I was going to tell Olivier last night and he went to Daniella's and I didn't want to interrupt so--" she waves her hand near his head and then cuts off again, shaking her head.  
  
The concern in his voice was more calming her down than anything, but she also couldn't stop thinking about the fact she needed to feed again now and Tony just --  
  
She takes another step back.  
  
Two days for a newborn should have been like a lifetime. Tony marveled at her self-control and at her restraint. But he also knew that it wouldn't last for much longer, and that if they really wanted to go to church tomorrow and not eat the entire cathedral, she would have to feed. Olivier's influence would still leave Stef waiting an hour for some blood from a bag.  
  
He shrugs off his jacket again, tosses it over on a chair and then takes a few steps towards her again with his neck now better exposed.  
  
"Drink," he offered, his gaze taking in the growing veins around her eyes. "It's alright, I want you to."   
  
He hadn't actually experienced that sensation without being blood-crazy and horny himself.  
  
Stefanie had been backing up - at least she was telling herself that, but really it was very distracting when Tony (yes, good, focus on him as a human being) was over there bloody undressing and exposing. Her body was getting very still; her mouth heavy with salivating anticipation. For all she wants to step back, listening to his pounding heart? She realized as it -- as -he- moves closer again...she was only winding herself tighter and tighter, a predator preparing to spring.  
  
The first thing she sees is the offered artery as he tilts his neck towards her, hers instinctively keening forward towards that delectable scent. Only this was...   
  
"Tony..." She speaks warily, taking a step backwards.  
  
Tony who had just flatly said this - the blood thirst - had brought him nothing but misery, stated her transformation the reason he wouldn't (couldn't) ask to be with her. And could she blame him? How many times had he seen these same veins, the same crimson eyes and manic mouth on the face of his father?   
  
(Remington was the real monster. She knew that.)  
  
Her hesitance was more comforting than he'd be willing to admit. That she was still hesitant about feeding from him even though it was natural to her now, even though she clearly wanted it (he tried not to let that get to his ego, she'd munch on any other human too, so he'd rather it be him). Yes, he was angry that this even had to be necessary but his anger took a backseat to his concern.  
  
"I'll be fine - I can wait, I did all day, I don't want t--" Well, that was a lie. Stef forces herself to add another word on there, "--you don't have to do this."  
  
"The longer you hold out, the worse it'll be," he spoke logically after a brief nod, as if both of them didn't already know all of that from experience. It would always be different for him, he didn't need it to survive, but Stefanie did.  
  
Now her gaze darts to his chest, the brief opening in the Varvatos where skin peeks beneath a navy button, olive-toned and flushing...right over where his heart would be...Stef licks her lips. This time the swoosh of her tongue is firm, repeated as she has no intention of drooling. She was not a child, however reborn. She could have manners, no matter how unorthodox it was. Maybe they should say the Grace.  
  
Her hands were taut, but open at her side as she brushes her hair off her own shoulder. Her eyes darting between his   
neck, eyes, neck, the column of his throat, the blue veins trapping a fluttering pulse, that beat of his life skipping for her, heating for her -- back to his eyes, dammit.   
  
"Do I need to take off my shirt to drive you -really- wild?" He smirked briefly and then shook his head before looking at her with a serious and determined gaze. He had made up his mind, and he wasn't above snapping her neck if she didn't stop (he hoped, for his own survival).   
  
"Couldn't hurt," she says in a toothy smirk, remarking of his shirt coming off and then has to restrain a wince. It could hurt, it absolutely could hurt - most definitely would in fact, at the beginning at least. What was that spell again? The anesthetic? Olivier told it to her so many times...why was it so hard to remember?! So much for heightened memory then - honestly! Oh and he just smells so good, feels so good...  
  
"Tony." She says his name again, but only to remind herself of it.   
  
The rest of her mind was filled with a deep-set desire, want, hunger for his blood. (And life, but if it killed her first, that she would not take).  
  
But if Tony was sure...  
  
"Stefanie," he breathed out her name after she says his again and took another step forward. "Drink."  
  
He said her name. He said it like a precious command, said her name as they had been playing with it for months now. Her gaze darts back to his eyes abruptly, and then she brings her hands up to his neck, cradling both cheeks and throat, but her eyes were on the mouth one thumb can't help but caress. (The other draws, repeatedly, a line on the pinking skin of his neck.)  
  
With one nod, their gazes locking, Stefanie feels her face shift entirely to be made of pulsating veins, fangs and eyes red. She clutches him to her, but doesn't move at first, wanting (needing) to see his honest reflection of trust with her holding him like this.  
  
Her eyes say 'thank you,' but she's too distracted to say that aloud, to say anything but the anesthetic spell (she thinks so?) and then turns his head with his easy permission. Bite clean and straight, she thinks on what Olivier said before -- faster blood flow, less pain.   
  
It...probably wasn't the cleanest of bites, but she tries. It's the thought that--oh, something or other. Her mouth is open enough to swallow her fist, white teeth staining scarlet in an instant, her tongue chasing down, repeatedly licking around the wound as she moves her hands to grip his shoulders instead. Her nose burrows in his heat, rubbing with reverence as she drinks deep.   
  



	37. Intimate

Her hand buries in his raven-hair, drinking fully, deep now. She's straddling him on the sofa, her knees digging into the couch. Unlike the first time, however, that she drowned in how fine Tony tastes, she's sipping slowly. She might have been starving, but from the moment she realized his hands were pulling her closer she knew she didn't want to rush this. More, she doesn't want to hurt him.   
  
It hadn't hurt her when Marcus drank, not past the initial plunge. He wasn't just feeding. They'd been...sharing, and she knows she wants to do that with Tony. He offered freely. His blood tastes like nectar of the Gods (maybe the particularly alcoholic Gods), and she murmurs her pleasure before she pulls back an inch, licking and abruptly finds herself pressing a kiss go his lips.   
  
(All she knew as for 'reasons why' was that she could taste his loss, his anger, and wants to reassure him.)  
  
Kissing him long, and hard, with his blood stains on her lips, she ignores the open wound right now as she looks into his eyes. Then she pricks the tip of her finger, and rubs it over the wound until it closes, watching and holding on to him softly.   
  
Her smile turns a bit wide as she realizes, "I stopped." Her nose brushes against his. He hadn't even needed to tell her; he hadn't done more than gasp. She giggles once, kissing his cheek again. "God, you taste too good, Tony."  
  
He doesn't think he recalls how they ended up on the couch. He doesn't think he has -ever- recalled when things end up moving from the wall to a couch (and there had been many instances), but this one especially so. All he knows is that his hands on her hips and back hold her to him as she drinks from him slower than before. He felt a little hazy, his eyes half-shut and his murmurs full-incomprehensible but he knows it's not all incontent.  
  
It didn't feel like she was drinking from him, like their foray outside on the patio, it felt like she was somehow drinking *him* in. Everything about him, and well, there was a few prickly parts of him (read: a majority) that weren't pleasant even to himself. Now, was the whole experience horrible? No. Once he had managed to get the hairs on the back of his neck to stand down, and fought off the instinct to throw her off, it had an oddly relaxing quality about it that was probably directly linked to the fact less blood was now in his system for his heart to pump through his body.  
  
He grits his teeth together briefly, feeling discomfort as her fangs extract only to be met with her lips as they press against his in a hard kiss. His fingers now slide from her back up to her hair, smirking (or was he smiling?) against her lips. Pulling back, he watches with curiosity as she pricks her finger (it took his entire will not to pull that into his mouth immediately) and then starts rubbing it against the two holes in his neck.  
  
"Huh, neat trick," he noted, bringing a hand to his neck to feel it, quickly dropping it away as it remained tender. Not much to do about that except wait for his own body to take care of it. Though granted now that would take longer, but he could endure it for that smile she had on her face.  
  
Hmm, they were fighting before? What? Were they really? Huh. Well, them's the breaks.  
  
"You did," he nodded, smiling to mirror hers only to smirk as she kisses his cheek and comments on his taste. This was, of course, old news to him for every part of him tasted good, but it didn't hurt to hear it repeated.  
  
"100% Organic. Feed your body right."  
  
Stef finds herself giggling, putting her finger to the top of her nose and tapping with his 'helpful tip.' Her knees push up the couch as she settles on his lap, murmuring to him, "Do you grow the bourbon yourself too?"  
  
It was a tease. She doesn't know what kind of non-organic thing could even be in the alcohol he drinks (doesn't want to know, truthfully) -- but she knew he wasn't exactly 'clean.' Laying her forehead into his neck to allow herself to snuggle closer, she let's her eyes flutter shut, still inhaling his scent. The skin she'd healed was pink. Her finger tip she moves from his nose to his lips, brushing it back and forth as if to let him get the ghost of the taste too.   
  
"I saw my maker do it. Twice, actually. I wish I could do it sooner, just it--keeping my face one way is still kind of...difficult." Stef maps out his lips, the crevices and grooves on his cheeks, murmuring. It's only been a few weeks, after all.   
  
Then her smile perks again as she repeats, "But I *stopped.* I knew I could, I *knew* it--"she kisses his neck, "--I knew it."  
  
"I said organic, not local," he protested after a silent 'heyyy' and a chuckle. Though, fairly, he was a filthy little 'bugger' despite his clean cuticles and perfect skin. He was pretty sure his lungs wouldn't thank him, nor his liver. Actually, did his super freaky hybridness regenerate those organs? Wow, he wondered. Fascinating, really, great stuff, he was very intrigued-  
  
Oh look, Stef was rubbing her finger against his lips. Blunt teeth, for that is all he possessed, nipped at the fingertip with an impish grin that quickly gave way to a less pleasant expression as she brought up her maker.   
  
Her maker. Pah. What did he think himself to be, a sultan? All these supes just had pretentious titles didn't they? Maker. Alpha. Beta. Protege. Sire. Pah. And why did she have to sound so pleasant about him anyway? He fed from her, made her gag on her blood and then killed her! What was so title deserving about that? Was it better than having her say the name Marcus? Maybe, but 'maker' was pretty damn close to Marcus already. The cazzo.   
  
Alright, angry moment over.  
  
He chuckled again at her insistence, knowing really how much it meant to her that she could. He had returned one night, proudly saying the same words. I stopped myself. It was a good feeling. He kissed her temple in congratulations, smiling again.  
  
"I'm proud, cara. And not just because I would have hated to break your neck," he half teased. He would have hated it after all!  
  
The anger spiking in a rumble-grumble of his throat beneath her ear, Stefanie decides to pretend he was just vibrating to amuse her. Just for a second. She knew he was angry (could feel it), but all she'd said was the word 'maker.' And she'd said that because she presumed the name Marcus would have bugged him more.   
  
But maybe not, considering how much Tony loves titles. She brushes her nose into his neck in a small caress as he kisses her forehead again, and snuggles her arms up around him. With a little giggle, she points out, "Hated it, suuure, I wouldn't have been giving you an excuse at all..."  
  
Hey, he had looked like he wanted to before. But then she'd looked like she wanted to eat him and you know, drank. Call it square?  
  
Tilting her head up as she takes her finger back and giggles again at the little nip, she hides her finger in her hair behind her head and teases, "No, don't bite, bad."   
  
(His hypocrisy was rubbing off on her.)  
  
Calmly, she adds, "Unless you want to bite elsewhere."  
  
"I need an excuse to snap necks?" Ooh, was it too soon to make an insensitive joke? Too late. Actually it was pretty damn insensitive even for him so naturally, that just made him laugh and then poke her side while smirking. Any chance she would have grown new tickle spots as a vampire? It still wasn't fair that she could do it to him. She had too many ways to unravel him already, adding in tickling him was just unfair.  
  
He was about to say something about how he wasn't the dog that needed to be reprimanded but his more sensitive sense stopped him, and his selfish part enjoyed this moment a little more than he should have to have it end so quickly and return back to the arguing which was only a matter of time.  
  
"I don't bite...often...that hard." Damn it, why hadn't he realized until now that he was a biter? Damn instinct.  
  
Stefanie just rolls her eyes (and giggles anyways), assuming with a long, soft exhale, "Guess you don't. I'm still proud you didn't have to."   
  
She was proud. In fact, she was feeling really, really good. It was bright in her mind, the memory of the last time she was like this. The morning she transformed. She wants to tell him, she's just--not sure, he was still so tense about her transforming. He just said it; he didn't know how to stop being angry with her. Only, she isn't angry! She was happy.   
  
Giggling again as she sees him pouting, she adds, "Oh yes, you do. It's hot, suesser." She nuzzles closer to him, "Hot, and sexy, and all kinds of," she drags her finger down his chest, "completely and totally adorable."  
  
He was too. It was a relief actually to have her be more in control, even though the first year of her transformation would be the toughest. Well, just 48 more weeks to go! Oh, he really sucked at this positivity thing didn't he? Did he at least get credit for trying? Partial credit?  
  
"Adorable?" He repeated as he pretended to be affronted. He scoffed and then pouted again for good measure.  
  
"Because all women want is to roll around in the sheets with 'adorable'," he smirked, giving her one of those adorable grins she claimed he had. (And alright, yes he did, he knew how to be fucking adorable, even if he hadn't yet fucked, adorable. It was too weird, he preferred mature women. Usually a few years older than him.)  
  
"Go back to the hot and sexy, I like those better."  
  
Sigh. Stef decided to think the word really (because actually sighing deeply requires inhaling deeply and well, she still has her lips on his neck). Men! Or...hybrids! No, she just means men.  
  
"You don't need to be thinking about 'all women,' " she points out, prodding his chest with her nail. Oops. She hopes she didn't hit him that hard; more blood would...well, she'd healed his wound, not replenished his system. He was still tender (it was part of why he was so warm and soft to snuggle with right now).  
  
But she supposed he wasn't going to like those adjectives either. So she tilts her head, licking her lip and says aloud, "Oh, before I do, I'm not making you miss *Feu et de Glace*, right?"  
  
She was playing. She also has no intention of letting him go; her knees were locked in place and her arm around his, her own neck like a swan as she grins at him.  
  
"Of course, half of the women then, the other half are still underage but," he grins teasingly, sticking his tongue out briefly before chuckling as she flicks him in the chest. He mouths an 'oww' though it really wasn't painful.  
  
Then she mentioned his newest obsession and his head lifted as he looked at her very seriously.  
  
"I'm torrenting all of it now, I can't just wait around to find out if Alexia and Jacques find their way back to each other!" Tony sighs and then he looks back up at Stefanie and quotes.  
  
"Tu es mon fatale erreur. Mais...je ne regrette rien, Alexia. Rien! Je t'adore!" Tony clutches his own heart and then groans, "And right after she had just accepted Franc's proposal! She needs to learn that Franc is the one who ran over her brother and the reason he's in the wheelchair and lost his dreams for the Olympics! That damn French bastard. There's an episode at 9 actually, maybe we can catch it-"  
  
Blinking, Stefanie can't help but feel like for a moment she was the one who made the "fatal error" as he starts quoting immediately. But the smile and heart clutching was so adorable she finds herself smirking as well, then leans in to shush him by kissing him hard, slipping her hands around his neck and waist again. Sue her, the fact that he was this involved even in something like this, a ridiculous French drama...she just loved it.  
  
Breaking off the hot, heavy kiss to smirk at him, she points out in his ear with a smirk, "I, regret nothing, suesser." She kisses him again below the ear, trying to miss the tender spots where she'd been drinking. Stefanie still doesn't want to hurt him.   
  
"Although I am up for anything that involves Jacques shirtless, Mon dieu..."   
  
Even as she's teasing, she's taking off his shirt too.   
  
Now he definitely smirked against her lips as she cut him off with a kiss, his hands grabbing around her waist and her lower thigh. His eyebrows wiggle as they pull back as if to say, hey, you asked for it, and then he chuckles in his throat at the whisper in his ear. Yes, that was obvious about dear Stef. Tony wished he was of a similar disposition sometimes. Regret weighed too heavily.   
  
"Oh, shh, as if Jacques has a better body than me, please," obvious by the way Stefanie was moving his shirt further away, unbuttoning it to reveal his chest to her. He planned to retaliate soon, but let's face it, the skirt she was wearing had about as much fabric as the scarf he had wrapped around her that one day.  
  
Whatever her double entendre in mentioning her lack of regret, she thinks for once she hadn't been using it to be sexual. The way he grabs her stalls her from continuing, lifting her higher on his lap. Lifts, she pulls her hair behind her ears as it starting to fall over her shoulder -- but Tony seems to enjoy that, so she let's it fall down, let's him play with it. As she slips her hand under his shirt, she chuckles and just shrugs as if to say 'eh, maaayybe.' She was swaying in his grasp, beaming down at him. The look of his pink neck, clean (and a little shiny from her tongue), she was just filled with pride to know she'd stopped.   
  
Wiggling an eyebrow, she asked as she's rubbing a finger over the little nub, "Do you want anything? I can get you anything and be back before you bliiink..."  
  
He scoffed, looking down at his own chest and then back to her, his eyebrows raising clearly disbelieving. Enough of his ego though (haha yeah right like that was humanly possible), like a cat with yarn, Tony's attentions were drawn back to Stefanie, his fingers tangling in her hair again. He played with the curls, smiling.  
  
"That sounds like a challenge, let's see...if I asked you to bring me a coconut with a straw and a little umbrella, by the time I open my eyes again, it'll be in my hand?" He tried it playfully, opening one eye instead.  
  
Enjoying how his hands felt playing with her hair, for a few moments Stefanie just tilts her head regarding him with wide, soft eyes. See? This was why she couldn't argue with feeding directly from the vein; he was just fine, willing, and affectionate with her. Meanwhile she felt...well not sated completely, but full, of life. Ironic, she knew, but it was true. Literally, she was rejuvenated and he was just too adorable with that pout, then  covering his eyes.   
  
Humming, she chuckles in his ear, "I suppose that depends; do you have coconuts in the cocktail bar?"   
  
Guess she's going to find out. Popping off his lap at her usual speed, she runs quickly, darts to the cocktails. Oh, seven hells, they actually did have coconuts. D'Grey's were ridiculous. (And that was why she was so relieved to be there.)  
  
Sticking a straw in the side of it and slip sliding across the jaccuzi floor, she darts back off, zooming until she can plop back on his lap all at once, legs up on the couch this time. (It gave him better access to her skirt.)  
  
"Voila!" Stefanie proclaims with a giggle, offering him the coconut with a flourish and kissing his cheek again, then nuzzling where she bit. Oh, damn, she had forgotten how she'd be hit by the scent anew, the want anew...  
  
Feeling her face begin to shift, she turns away from his neck to push his shirt off farther, then resumes toying with the nub, trying not to breathe. She teases aloud, brightly, "Challenge completed."  
  
Erm, they did. Whoops, he had forgotten that. That was no challenge after all! Still, as he umphed aloud when she returned back to his lap in less than two seconds, he laughed afterward as the coconut was in his hand. Straw on there, he leaned forward to take a sip of the coconut water and then nodded contently.  
  
"Well, I mean, there's no little umbrella," he teased before taking another sip, shifting on the couch to accommodate them comfortably again.  
  
As a little shiver ran up his spine, Tony looked back down at what Stefanie was doing and then clicked his tongue, "Stef, leave my nipple alone, you're not gonna get radio on that thing."   
  
So she'd forgotten the little umbrella, looking for the coconuts. Grumbling with his tease, she shifts as he does, leaning back on the couch. "Well, unless you have a twelve-inch little man looking not to get cold in the rain..."   
  
Yeah, Stef, because that makes sense. Look, she was vibrating with the thrill his blood (his *self*) was giving her. The rest was just going to have to come later. The coconut water was a  strong scent, she realized, pleased it was somewhat distracting. No wonder she bathes her hair in it.   
  
"Challenge accepted!," she hums in her best Barney Stimson voice.   
  
Grin turning wicked as he groans at her, Stefanie promptly leans forward and licks it. As the tip of her tongue caresses and flicks and tastes the tiny patch of sensitive skin, she raises her fingers pointedly, and snaps. From her purse, her MP3 player turns on.   
  
(Close enough. She was having too much fun playing with his chest.)  
  
"You mean portable-Tony? Nah, he's with Oli. He follows him around and questions everything he does." He chuckled and then wondered whether or not to get him that as a birthday present. That'd be a little weird. Maybe a bobblehead that spouted inspirational quotes.  
  
Sighing and groaning as she considers that a challenge as well, he closes his eyes mid-sip, laying his head back further as she adds her tongue to the mix. He can't help a sigh of content (not a hum, because that would be turned into a joke), only to laugh as he hears music suddenly playing from earbuds at the other end of the room.  
  
"Cheeky," he commented, flicking her nose with a finger and then tilting her head up with the same finger now on her chin to meet their lips together in a kiss.  
  
Portable Tony? Stefanie finds her eyebrow creased somewhere in the middle of her forehead before she has to just laugh aloud. Leave it to Tony to take her question somewhat seriously. Only when it was a joke, she noted, little else she did with him did he allow himself to be serious.  
  
As his throat was exposed with his head tilt, Stefanie's eyes fixate on it, melting to red, then shifting back to blue from sheer determination and pointing out to her lustful self she wants more than just his blood. She let's him tilt her chin up to lean in to kiss her, feeling her knees beginning to curl beneath her, feet into his thighs, her free hand gripping his neck.   
  
"Mm," she smirks at him, near his lips, hovering as she points out, "Can't help it. Born that way. Are you going to punish me?"  
  
"And give up my coconut?" He moves it so that the straw gets in between their lips and he takes a sip while still looking in her eyes, commenting with a silent 'mmh, mmh, mmh'. Coconut water, he really needed to make a cocktail out of this later, most probably with rum. Keep the tropical theme going and what not.  
  
"Maybe later, once I stop being such a pile of goooo," he teased, "regain my strength given that you're so demanding."  
  
"Demanding?" She half gasps, tongue darting out to poke the little coconut straw away and prod his lips. Her hand rising from his chest to tuck a hair around his ear as she kisses him again, she whispers, "You offered..."  
  
There was a hint of anxiety in her words no matter how playful she was trying to be. Truth was if she really had reduced him to a "pile of goo" (oh and he wonders why she says adorable not hot all the time), well, that was something she needed to work on.   
  
After licking up his jawline to insure she doesn't make him 'give up his coconut' just because she can't seem to stop tasting him, she adds aloud, casual, "You did give me a lot though. It's why I wouldn't mind if you...took some from me," this would be easier to be casual if she wasn't half sure any mention of her as a vampire made him cringe. (But she couldn't just stop being who she was, so.)  
  
Eyes back on his, she says softly, "You know it's the most intimate thing vampires *can*, do, Tony."  
  
And then she playfully just reached for his straw with her blunt teeth, bit down and took a sip too without looking away from him.   
  
Yes, he had. And two weeks from now, he still wouldn't know why he had, even though he'd tell himself it's obviously because she had gone too long without feeding and didn't want her to feed on Teresa or one of the other maids. Though that was more of a technicality than anything else.  
  
Hmm, blegh, being tired made him too truthful. It was like being drunk, with the buzz and everything, except he wasn't trying to stand on the piano and sing 'Like A Virgin'.  
  
Smiling to ward off a giggle as she licks his face like a cat while he drinks (it tickled, shh), he lets go of the straw as she offers to let him drink from her too. Truthfully, Tony was still anxious over the thought of feeding, maybe even more anxious when it was from Stef. The last time there was a difference, there was sex involved to get distracted and Stef couldn't snap -his- neck to get him to stop. Not without being permanently dead. Well, not even, he'd be a vamp too. In which case he'd go ask Claude to drive a stake through his heart.  
  
Hearing the description of blood sharing made him look back, zoning back in after his thoughts carried him away, a small smile on his face as he asked.  
  
"Really? How does it work- oh, Stef, don't bite the straaaw," he pulls the coconut away, "I hate that, what are you, six?"  
  
Better she bite the straw than bite him again, she thinks, but just holds her fingers to her lips and murmurs through a little giggle, "Two weeks, actually, so, give me a break."   
  
Stefanie leans forward to kiss his temple in one loud smack, then turns, tongue and lips hunting for the top of the straw again. (Looking in his eyes as she said that might be too difficult).   
  
With perfect ladylike precision, she takes the tip of it and sucks, careful not to bite. Her eyes bat at him, like a cat saying she was sorry, then let his straw go to answer him.   
  
"I'm not sure, exactly, except--," she tilts her head, pink tongue sticking between her teeth. "You know how you explained that feeling you get when you feed to me? It's like that, only since we both feel it, we're sharing it, and the blood, and life in general...so. Intimate. Voila."  
  
She whispers the last two words as teasingly as possible, her lips hovering over his, hoping he won't see the shining honesty in her gaze.   
  
"Touch������������������," he inclined his head and grinned. Really though, don't bite the straw, please. Even Tony wasn't that childish. He used to reprimand kids that did bite on the straws because then the drink had a tougher time coming up. Logic! Come on.  
  
He's more appeased as she takes the straw in her mouth the correct way, listening curiously as she explains. He hadn't thought about sharing that feeling with anyone given that it was such a selfish venture. Then again, they had already done it, out on the porch. And it did lead to possibly the best sex of his life.  
  
"Voila," he repeats with a little smile and then nods, "and you knew that? When you offered on the porch?"  
  
That little smile on his lips did almost as much to lift her spirits as his blood had. Actually, maybe more. His offering kept her alive literally, but his smile, the idea Tony was happy even for a blinding second... what was that old commercial? Slash ancient proverb? Priceless.   
  
(And to think it just took a few quarts of blood, a coconut with a straw, and okay probably how short her skirt was, to get him to stop thinking about her and Ansel. Good.)   
  
Batting her lashes so they brush up his forehead as she looks down, heady, lids heavy, she nods without taking a breath. Then nods again.  
  
"Yeah, I did. One of the reasons I wanted to try. The other predominant one was that knowing how hard it would be for me to stop, you having my blood meant it was both harder to kill you and I wouldn't turn you....but, that was....yeah, I knew."  
  
She pulls back slightly, her hand coming from over his ear to grace around his cheek now. Quiet and docile, like a doll as she looks in those deep eyes she tilts her head at him before asking, "What are you thinking about?"  
  
He started chuckling as she listed off the other reason she had offered him (okay so maybe compel and trick were more correct words but he was currently willing to overlook that), nodding his head with pursed lips as he agreed with her logical and functional assessment. The smile returned as he found himself still nodding, though he wasn't sure exactly why.  
  
Tilting his head to look back at her better, marveling again at how soft she could still be, his smile turns impish before replying, "About the great sex we had on the patio."   
  
Tony's impish little smirk made her know the answer two seconds before he offers it, but she just echoes his smirk with her. It really was great, in ways he couldn't even know. It was almost sad to her, how little he *could* know of sensation; but then, maybe he knew more than she thought, maybe the vamp-half of him does let him see more and know more of the world. It fascinates her, how many shades of blue there were in his gaze; how rich his scent, how well she could hear every individual lyric on the tinny little ear buds still playing in her purse. Stef hates to think of  Tony missing out.  
  
"Figures." She says instead, teasingly kissing the corner of his lips and drawing herself up on his lap. Her head tilts as she asks, "So does that mean..."  
  
Her nail hovers over her jugular, ready to tear, hardly thinking of the tiny pain she'd feel, knowing how much it would be surpassed by pleasure. Lingering there, she let's the question be unspoken. Except for an arch in her brow (she was learning!).  
  
He pretended to consider it, even went as far as to tap his chin thoughtfully, before he finished the coconut water in one sip, threw it over his shoulder (wow, he really hope whatever broke wasn't too expensive), and then flipped them on the couch, pressing their lips together again in a deeper and slower kiss.   
  
His mouth naturally gravitated towards her neck, kissing down her jawline until he found it. The moment Stefanie made the scratch with her nail against her skin, his mouth covered the spot, keeping his eyes closed in hope that if he didn't see the liquid, the violent anticipation that came with it would diminish. It half worked, but the moment his tongue tasted the blood his grip around her waist tightened and he pressed himself closer, sucking the blood into his mouth, humming as it hit the back of his throat.  
  
Murmur low in her throat, Tony hesitates just long enough for her to begin to comment 'so should we have great sex then'--but hesitates herself, because she doesn't want to joke it away. It had been intimate on the porch, their love-making emotional enough she was never going to mention aloud she heard his relief when he spoke her name. Nor would she ever forget it.   
  
Thank heavens she doesn't speak; he seems of the same mind when he claims her mouth and throws her down on the couch. Glass shatters over the leather back, but she's shut her eyes, drowning it out, listening to the rhythm of his heart beating out to her. One leg hitches around his waist, arm around his neck, but otherwise she let's him lead. Compliant beneath him, she exhales in sharp relief as his mouth covers the small wound on her neck. Her hand scoots up his back to his neck, fingers brushing back and forth, soothing and coaxing him to take more.   
  
"Tony..." She murmurs in his ear, almost playfully, her heel digging into the small of his back in retaliation for his staunch grip. Warmth covers her as a blanket does. Her eyelids flutter. "Si, suesser..."   
  
The words were melodic as she wants to soothe his trembling. Her blood was freely offered. Ha! In fact, she's about to giggle out it had been his first, but recalling that seems to make her calmer still. Arms and legs fold into his greedy embrace. She lifts her chest into his, pressing hard as she tastes his need in the back of her throat. Her neck tilts, forehead pressing into the cushion. It sticks in sweat, amazing her; vampires don't sweat. But maybe it just felt like she was--the longer he drank, the warmer she felt, the fuller she felt, and...more...  
  
A tiny noise of discomfort leaves her lips and her fingers grip his neck suddenly. She'd felt the question "How did he stand it?" burn itself into her chest before she tasted or thought it, and shudders with wanting to reassure him, shower him in affection in spite of all he said and did to hurt her. Ironic, wasn't it, this was probably the least hurtful thing he'd ever done to her?   
  
Stef pulls herself into him, swallow tight as she shudders with the warmth and cranes her neck back down to kiss the top of his head, messily, hard and hot.   
  
"I've got you," she whispers, softly.  
  
Her breath struck his ear as hot as the blood coating his tongue and throat, a deep hum of want reverberating through his chest outward as he fought to have more of it. He drank and tasted her, and she was delicious. It wasn't like before, maybe because now he had the knowledge that this was the most intimate things vampires did and he didn't want to seem like a virgin sucking on her neck just because (but...he knew the comparison wasn't inaccurate). So he searched for the taste she talked about.  
  
For a moment, what he found only fueled a want for violence. The anger was brief, left over from before, but it surged in his chest and were his mouth not full of her sweet skin he would have growled (he might have tried to anyways). Fingers gripped tighter, bunching up a skirt that had already been barely there.  
  
But a relief washes over him, bigger than anything else, and it's all he could think about. The stress on his shoulders wanted to sprout wings and fly off forever, and the more he drank the more it felt that way. Tony made a noise like a whimper that he would deny for as long as he breathed. A heavy weight off his chest, one he'd been clawing at and never been able to grab hold of. It was gone entirely in that peaceful length of time, and then Tony realized belatedly, it was how Stefanie felt now.  
  
The more he drank, the lighter she felt. As she twists and murmurs under him, she realizes very slowly how much he's taking, how much she's shuddering, how heavy he suddenly feels. And yet she was so happy, so filled with the pleasure as he lifts her into him she just waits. Waits, kissing his forehead, passing her hand down the back of his neck.   
  
There was a twinge in her throat as she realized she couldn't let him take much more, and she grumbles herself (irritating), writhing under his grasp before gasping into his ear, "Shhh, Tony. That's enough."  
  
(His hair was like silk in her fingers.)  
  
She grasps his neck, trying to coax him away from her throat as she continues to repeat, "I've got you, I'm here, just kiss me."  
  
It was a good thing she didn't need to breathe, considering how weak she felt. It was a good weak, though, the kind of bone deep tiredness that did usually follow orgasm. Pressing her lips to the raven's nest of hair she just keeps kissing, lazy and tired as her hand grips his hip, thumb brushing back and forth over the bone.   
  
He loathed to pull away. It wasn't the same as drinking from Shoshanna, there was no fear of killing Stefanie, even if he didn't want to hurt her further. But drinking from the woman at the club had him tasting his own memories, now he felt like he was drinking Stefanie's, like she had done to him. He wasn't angry, that was a miracle in itself, but he felt good, and peaceful and he didn't want that to stop.  
  
He felt more than heard her voice near his ear, and the caring and reassurance transferred over to the taste in his mouth. Warmth, surprising warmth, covered him. If he let go, he felt like he would probably float up into space. Was it any wonder he didn't want to stop?  
  
That's why he had to stop. He forced the repeated mantra in his head: that was enough (lies), he didn't need anymore (but he wanted it, isn't that what mattered?), that it wasn't going to taste this good forever (it never did). It was the last point that brought him enough pause to tear his mouth away with a gasp.  
  
Her lips found his almost immediately, his kiss retaining the hunger he had felt while drinking. When he realized after bringing a hand up to cup her neck that the weight was still gone, and that he could still feel the relief and content, he sighed against her mouth and managed to slow down in something short of awe.  
  
For long, lingering hasty moments his mouth was just as hungry as before, kisses hard with his tongue sweeping and searching, as if he meant to impress himself in every inch of her. Like he was saying 'I claim this space forever' with olive-tinted breath, a mouth as sinful as his bourbon. Then, softly he starts to slow down until he's just clutching her closer and looking at her adoring and in shock.   
  
She giggles, a lazy quiet sound, licking his upper lip to clean her blood from his mouth. Fluttering her hand over his shoulder with the back of her hand, and says happily, with a wink, "Hot."   
  
He laughs breathily, keeping his eyes fixed on her face instead of her neck, not willing to chance seeing it and having that weight on his chest return so soon. He knew it would, because it couldn't just miraculously disappear, it was just hovering in the air, offering a moment's respite to which he was more than grateful for.  
  
Tony had stopped himself, yes, like he had at the club, but that wasn't what had him smiling like a fool (because anybody who smiled this wide definitely had to be a fool). Hot, yes, that was definitely hot...but it really wasn't. Bear with him! He could find the words, really, whenever he stopped floating.  
  
"I don't want to rip your throat out," he revealed with the same giddy realization that he got when he was a kid and figured out his Christmas present two seconds before he finished unwrapping it. Then he laughed again and kissed the tip of Stefanie's nose.  
  
"I feel...good. Just good."  
  
Okay. So, she knows he doesn't want to hear how unbelievably adorable he was being (as he was rolling around on the -- er, couch cushions -- with her). Yet when he kisses the tip of her nose and beams at her like he's a kid being given an extra piece of cake?! He was so cute! She lights up in his arms, settling for sliding hers up and around his neck and burrowing her nose and mouth into his chest, nodding with tiny giggles. This has the added benefit of hiding her throat from his gaze, letting it be lost to her wild hair instead. Plus, she gets to kiss him three times in retribution too.   
  
It was a relief to hear him say that, though; she feels unbearable weights lifted from her chest and both is too scared to put names to them, and too proud to admit to the fear. She let's her nuzzling his neck and embrace stand as testament to her delight. Then she turns her face back up, eyes shining to look at him, unable to keep her gaze off his long, just as he seems unable to do with her.   
  
"I'm certainly glad you don't want to do that," she teases lightly, but she knows what he meant. He's ripped into every person he's ever drunk from in one way or another. The idea that he could feed and not hurt them, not even want to, it was revolutionary to him. Sue her for being delighted he felt it with her.   
  
"Call me selfish," she continues playfully, rubbing her nose against his, "but I'm glad you did with me first." Her lips pluck his, before she settles back against the couch to gaze up at him, eyes still soft in her relief and quick darts of affection.   
  
"You did it," she says softly, looking up at him with eyes warm and wide. "You didn't just stop yourself, did you? It felt...different. Deeper, somehow. And like you didn't need to, you know, rip my head off to enjoy yourself."  
  
She chuckles again, however entirely unfunny that is.   
  
"I enjoyed it too." Stef swears at him, suddenly sure he won't believe her, wanting to know how she could help him to know his action wasn't using her at all. Or er, it was, but that she wanted him to, as much as she'd used him.   
  
"You...fit," she tries to explain, "against me, like this, you just...I don't know, just felt good. Just felt...right."  
  
Her hand runs down his cheek, the back of it still caressing his bare shoulder. It occurs to her his hand is bunched up in her skirt, fingers under it, and she's hardly noticed for how comfortable she is like that.   
  
Then her grin turns wicked as she adds, "And you're cute right now. All flush and sticky and hazy-eyed..."  
  
"Hmm, selfish, greedy, demanding, yes," he agreed, adding all the other adjectives for good measure with a teasing smile as she moves her nose against his, and tries not to think about the fact that he wasn't the first person she did it with. It would mess up a vibe too good to make end prematurely.  
  
He nodded, agreeing. It was different and not just because he didn't feel the need to rip her head off her shoulders (well, not after the first several seconds). Chuckling as she says it was enjoyable for her too, glad to hear but it was still vaguely confusing to him if he thought about it too deeply. Big picture here, Tony.  
  
Smiling at her simple explanation, of how it just felt right, he relaxed further into her hold and nodded, commenting still amazed.  
  
"It does." Against everything, it did feel right, right now. It felt good.  
  
And then he groans as she starts teasing him purposefully, his head laying against the arm rest of the couch, "I'm not cute, I'm hot. Handsome. Sexy. Formidable. Intense. Out-of-this-world. Et cetera. Et cetera."   
  
Laughing under her breath at the new adjectives he assigned himself, she finally murmurs after kissing his neck again, "All right si, si...and you're selfish, greedy, demanding, possessive..."  
  
All right so, she started off just re-listing his adjectives for her. But then she did not really mind being described as such, nor that he matches her in it all. There were red prints from his fingers deep in her skin now, beginning to fade, and yet, she wishes they wouldn't. Stefanie had always liked the lover's marks. They were to be put on be parade; she'd never been ashamed.   
  
Freeing a hand and raising it to grace his cheek still as she turns them, cuddles into both of his arms, she relaxed.   
  
Though he drank quite a bit from her, she hears his breath quicken and catch, feels the seizure in his heart. The muscles around her twitch and tense, then relax as if forced to be, as if he can't quite let them be but God he just needs them to be, so dammit he's going to soften because Tony D'Grey said so. A smirk plucks up Stefanie's lips for a moment and she turns her head, laying it against her arm under his shoulder sideways on the couch. Her back presses to his chest. Hair falls pretty much everywhere she thinks, sticking to the leather couch and his skin, obscuring her eyes before she shuts them.   
  
Yawning, she considers quietly the fact that it wasn't a surprise that Tony would be shocked by her words. Stef knows what he's thinking about. In her mind, that wasn't taking care of her, but it might be because she knows she's not that person anymore. It doesn't seem as relevant when the circumstances have changed so drastically that she's no longer able to be held back. And besides...he hadn't held her back at Notre Dame either; he listened to her, even when she saw how angry he got at her demands.   
  
"I am demanding," she murmurs quietly, half into the couch and wrapping her arm around his on her hip and waist. Her eyes stay on the pillow on the floor, not sure when she threw it, seeing the scars embedded from her nails in the threads.

"As long as you know," he replied at the murmur against his skin, having felt it more than heard it, chuckling briefly as he kept his arms wrapped around her, leaving the hem of her skirt alone for the moment to get a more comfortable position where his hand wouldn't go numb at an awkward angle.

"And nope, I'm not gonna stop demanding independence. Still appreciate your support, Tonio. I'm complicated, shh," she teases, turning her head to kiss his nearest patch of skin (on the underside of his elbow), "just go with it, it works."

He smiled as she explained and it reminded him of something he would and nodded again, "It makes perfect sense, completely." No it didn't, but if he acted like it did then it would eventually become true.

"You are out of this world though, suesser. Mind blowing. And you take such good care of me. I want to do the same for you, all right?"  
  
"What an original list," he remarked teasingly, chuckling after licking his stained lips. They were all true, of course, even if he wasn't extremely proud of it but that wasn't really new about him.  
  
Tony raises his head again to hear her say much more pleasing adjectives, even if the first is a repeat again (haha, repeat again), smiling. It softens to hear her say he took care of her. First of all, he didn't think she would have ever admitted that. Ever. Well, not after what he did and considered 'taking care'. And second, that it was described as good.  
  
He wanted so badly to believe that it was true that he simply nodded with a quiet exhale, "Yeah, okay."

And then her lips twitched up again as she added, "Yeah?" He really would let her look out for him too? (Everything between them always had been in equality, hadn't it?) Nodding against his chest, she continues, "Great." What a small, silly word for such a wonderful moment he gave her! 

"Great," he echoed genuinely, kissing the top of her head.

"Mmm, mind if we nap here, or should we shift to your bed? I mean I suppose we are kind of undressed here..."  
  
Undressed and bloody, but.   
  
His eyes were already closed when she suggested the nap.  
  
"Read my mind." Was that the connection, or just her being able to pick up on his exhaustion from his breathing and heart rate?  
  
"I'm pretty sure we've been given a wide berth so I'm not moving," he yawned, wiggling her closer, "off the couch, not moving off the couch. Hell, I could be fully nude and not move off this couch." He smirks, mostly joking.


	38. Decree

**Oli:** *Leaning back against the dressing room chair and surveys Tony,* But you aren't worried, yeah? So, I mean I think you know me pretty well.  
  
 **Tony:** Well, I certainly like to think so, yes. So of course you wouldn't lie to me, remember- God is always watching.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Chuckles,* Well we don't have a problem then. I haven't lied to you, just to God.   
  
**Tony:** I don't know whether to be flattered or disappointed that you think the latter a lesser offense.  
  
 **Olivier:** Flattered, definitely--andiamo, fratello, always look on the bright side!   
  
**Tony:** *chuckles* now you know you can't say that without expecting me to burst out into song, right? *Grins and then takes a big breath* always look on the briiiight siiide of liiiife.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Whistles the tune with him as he browses through the cashmere, admittedly, more as an excuse to eye the attendant.* You know there's basically nothing I can say that won't have you singing something, vero? Besiiides, *picks scarf up to try on in mirror,* it was a compliment, you're a lot more of a nuisance than God is.   
  
**Tony:** *He smirks and then shrugs* That's just a risk you have to take in conversing with me. *He raises his eyebrows and then shakes his head* More of a nuisance than God. Maybe I should make -that- into a song. Though unless I can find some way to set a plague loose on the earth, I don't think it'd be particularly accurate.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Chuckles, opens his mouth and raises index finger, then thinks better of what he was about to say and takes it back.* Well, it's pretty accurate for me. You're more of a nuisance to me. Depends on the definition of plague really, too.  
  
 **Tony:** Plague: noun, an infestation of disease, animals, or insects. *weighs this definition and then nods* Sounds legit, what's your definition then? *Takes the scarf Olivier was trying on off and sets it aside*  
  
 **Olivier:** Infestation, that's a good word, I'd say infestation of anything. We're a plague on the Earth really, well, *waving off his hand and chuckles, thanking his brother for putting the scarf aside,* half of us is. The other half is a plague on the first half of us.   
  
**Tony:** Don't go too deep on me there, Aristotle. *he shakes his head and then grabs a pair of round sunglasses and puts them on* So like, we're all plague brah. Groovy. We have to pay respects to our Mother Earth. Righteous, no?  
  
 **Olivier:** *Chuckling as he looks at the glasses and holds his hand up in a rocker's peace sign.* Totally man, totally. Rock on. *He picks up one of the sweaters and starts checking the size,* Aristotle? You couldn't pick a Roman philosopher at least?   
  
**Tony:** *Nodding with his head cocked to the side and then has to think way too long to come up with a Roman philosopher before popping his lips* Yeah, I got nothing.  
  
 **Olivier:** Marcus Aurelius? *He holds the sweater up against him to ask Tony's opinion with an eyebrow cocked, otherwise silently.* Did you sleep through every history lesson or were you just too busy flirting with Ms. Travers?  
  
 **Tony:** *After taking off the sunglasses, he scrunches up his face and then does the so-so motion with his hand* Don't be so assuming! I only slept through half of them. And you know Greeks were the better philosophers, brother. Roman talents lie in other areas.  
  
 **Olivier:** Bah! *He waves his hand with the suggestion, even though his eyebrows and nod allow he was probably right. Putting the sweater back down he paused and then pointed at a shirt for his brother to try (it was white, see).* And slept with the other half of them, I remember. *He chuckles under his breath, adding as an afterthought,* I'm supposed to be assuming. People are so petrified of being wrong they don't want to tell you you are, man. *He added the 'man' just to go with their theme.*   
  
**Tony:** *Picking up the shirt and then holding it up against his chest, he contemplates but ultimately hangs it back on the rack* Well thankfully you aren' t petrified and neither am I to tell you when you are wrong, oh brother of mine.  
  
 **Olivier:** *He nods to the attendant as she points at his scarf offering her a wink,* I'm not petrified of telling myself I'm wrong? Yeah, *smirks* I can be pretty hard on myself you know. Grazie, Diana. *He added taking the champagne off her tray, then goes and toasts Tony.* Go on then. *Sideways to Diana,* My brother's going to tell me where I'm wrong.  
  
 **Tony:** No, you're not petrified of doing actions that could be considered wrong *he takes the glass pleasantly and then before taking a sip he grins* Well , first of all humans are not an infestation Donny Downer.  
  
 **Olivier:** Ah, touche. *chuckling,* Though my problem tends to be with the fact that it would seem to me 'right and wrong' are very personal and arbitrary concepts.  
  
  
*Chuckling and allowing,* All right, sure, sure, that may have been a little extreme. The Earth does do a good job of kicking us out if necessary. *pause, then sly grin* And my second statement, was that an overstatement as well? Not *all* a plague on humanity?  
  
 **Tony:** Wow only half an hour out and I want to punch you in the face already. *rolls his eyes and then shakes his head* Yes, it is an gross overstatement that assumes the worst of humanity.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Tuts, toasting Diana again as she brings over more sweaters,* You hear the way my brother speaks to me? *He teases lightly before a sip, brows furrowing over the gulp.* Because...they might not all die, you mean?  
  
 **Tony:** You mean my words of affection? *quick fake grin before he eyes a sweater Diana brings over and takes a sip* Because none have to die, I mean aside from the natural order of the world, but still.  
  
 **Olivier:** Ahhh, my mistake, mi dispacie, I do suppose I am prone to a bit of paranoia. *Exhales, picking up a pair of slacks and then commenting idly on the sweater Tony raised,* Oh, si, questo e bello. Try that one on. *Nodding absently as he swirls the champagne around and contemplates the statement.* I suppose. Question, Tonio. What do you consider occurring naturally? Didn't we naturally evolve the same as humans from monkeys? All right maybe there was a bit of a supernatural edge, but...  
  
 **Tony:** You know *as he takes the sweater and then starts moving towards a dressing stall* old age, auto accidents, cancer, aids, malaria, any non-apocalyp tic events that would be caused by the overpopulation and unprevented technological growth of the human species. *He goes into the stall, hanging the swe ater up as he takes off his shirt and then pops his head out the curtain adding as an afterthought* Some of us are further evolved from our furry cousins , Kerchak. *Sticks his head back in*  
  
 **Olivier:** *He nods along to the list, half conducting it with his champagne glass, half listening. He was fully amused, however (and maybe a bit proud) when without a word his brother took his advice and went to try it on. At least his fashion sense wasn't in question. That was something.* All right yes, yeah, some of us did.   
  
*He winks again at Diana as she retreated to take their "not purchasing" pile back to be hung up again. As Tony tries on he calls back,* But that's my point kind of-tell me Darwin, magic came from this world too, didn't it? It had to, *he reasons,* if it was divinity alone, it wouldn't work for the "wrong things."   
  
*Yes, he used the air quotes.*   
  
**Tony:** Magic didn't come from this world, Oli, magic created it, I mean *he slings back the curtains after putting on the sweater and then strides forward * look around you! What is this, our humble existence, *he steps up to the three way mirror, fixing his collar and then inspecting himself in it* if not magical? And no, I am not talking about myself although I'm getting there. *He winks at his reflection and then turns back to Olivier* Then of course you have the other magic, the one not of this earth, the unnatural one, coincidentally the one we're letting walk around our home in a grotesque human form whenever she pleases. It's not one magic used for different purposes, it's two different kinds. *turns back to the mirror with a dismissive wave* And I'm sure there are many scholars which share the opinions I'm voicing.   
  
**Olivier:** *Waving off the barely disclosed scholarly opinions, and then after another sip (and eyebrow arch as he critically examines both the sweater and the argument), he points out mildly.* I assume you mean Audrey. As Stefanie's there at you behest. *He turns and sets the champagne back down, then plops down on the dressing room coach, both arms spreading line wings behind him.* I haven't entirely let her come and go 'whenever' you know, you're the only one who does that. *He smirks.*   
  
**Tony:** Please *scoffs* as if Stefanie is grotesque. *He inspects himself again in the mirror and then wrinkles his nose, shaking his head to himself in di sapproval* Oh haha! Okay, wrong on so many levels one- as if you could 'let me' do anything. *Scoffs again* Please. Second, really? I'm the only one, hm m? *with raised eyebrows he goes back to the dressing room to take off the sweater*  
  
 **Olivier:** *Snorts, then allows,* I will admit she is fairly attractive. If...leggy, blonde, Aryan, vampire models are your thing. *Mmm. He lost track of the point for a moment.* But Audrey is equally so, you know, and I'm--just gonna stop talking about that now yes,* the latter half of his sentence was spoken into his glass before he drowns if in a gulp. Then his eyebrows furrow.* I know exactly who is in that house at all times, Tonio, what are you getting at?  
  
 **Tony:** ...Well, four out of five ain't bad. *Utterly ignoring the second part of that sentence, totally up for stopping that part of the conversation, Tony puts the sweater back on the hanger and then exits the stall fully clothed again.* I'm saying I'm not the only one with level 8 security clearance. One curvy freaky dark-haired exotic publicist comes to mind- ha, yes! Five descriptors, I did that without pausing, high five for me!  
  
 **Olivier:** *Lightly, teasing, now wearing the sunglasses his brother'd had on when he came out of the dressing room too.* Hey, don't punish her for being German, man, not cool. *Eyebrow popping as he sees Diana coming back with a wheel-pushed line of suit jackets he starts browsing instantly, brows furrowing a little as he thinks that through. And because he was watching Diana high five his brother and thinking he really was incapable of not flirting with every attendant they ever met.* She doesn't have level 8...*He argues instinctively.* Maybe seven. She doesn't know my pass codes..but then, you don't either. *Olivier was fine with it staying that way. He takes a jacket out, then sets it down while he rolls up his sleeves, undoing the cuffs.* So?  
  
 **Tony:** *he grinned and then smirked as his high five was answered, winking briefly before walking over to stand next to Oli by the rack of suit jackets (because of course), crossing his arms atop the metal bar and then putting his chin on said arms* You mean your password -isn't- DGreyRulez5Eva? *smirks* No, so. Just saying. Also, because it's important to reiterate, you -let- me? *Pushes his shoulder*  
  
 **Olivier:** *Snapping his fingers,* Cazzo, you guessed it. *Ah, hey, he waves his brother a little down the line of jackets so he could pick the one up again. Slipping the silk over his sleeve as he's pushed he chuckles.* Deed's in my name, brah. Obviously I could kick you out or lock you in at any time. *And why yes both of those were remarkably insensitive considering their past but he's D'Grey, so he shoves this off.* Also, you know, apparently Stefanie can too. She just can though, we don't let her do anything. *This he mutters while walking over to the mirrors and starting to the turn, examining it critically.* By the way, have I mentioned how happy I am you came home recently?   
  
**Tony:** *Rolls his eyes again before adding in false cheer* And at any time I could send the foundation crumbling or you know, set it on fire. *Sighs* Decisions, decisions. Although i might rent a wrecking ball. *Shrugs and then laughs at his next comment* Right. *nodding as he looks through the jackets with minimal interest, reaching for his flute again and taking a sip* Not recently, no. You've failed to meet your gratitude quota.  
  
 **Olivier:** *As he's adjusting the collar, he clicks his tongue.* I think your fist did a number on the wall greater, no need for the wrecking ball. *He fans out the edge of the suit, spinning, decides he likes it and asks Diana if she could fetch the slacks to try those on too. While awaiting, he reiterates himself,* Please don't burn the house down. *He chuckles, offhand and casual,* Considering how I had to have Nonna even put the house in my name. I mean, Dad wouldn't have had a will if she hadn't convinced him. *His eyebrows crinkle as he picks up a tie as if to double check. Then laughs, under his breath, and chucks it over to his brother.* There, that gratitude enough? *It was a Navy, silk, tie with the Van Gogh TARDIS on it.*    
  
 **Tony:** It wasn't my fist *he mumbled before going to sit on the couch and continue sipping his champagne* No promises. What if there's a plague? *He smirks, raising the glass to his brother and bringing it back to his mouth. It gave him an excuse to not comment on the subject of their father and wills, see. Well, almost.* Our Nonna, practical as always. *Taking the tie as it's chucked over to him, rude, he lifts up to his eye line and then grins as he sees the pattern, slinging it over his neck* Awesome.  
  
 **Olivier:** She does have a knack at being prudent. And knowing her not-really-her-grandsons particularly well. *That wasn't snide, he promised. Practical, yes, sure that was one word for it. Shaking his head to himself as he's saluted,* Well so far it's survived you, so you know, I'd feel better if you promis--what do you mean it wasn't your fist? *He says that as he takes the slacks from Diana, bemusedly toying with the pleat over his arm looking at his brother, a little concerned. (Though to be sure that was par for the course with Tony.)*  
  
 **Tony:** First a comparison to God, now to a plague, oh do I feel loved. *He shakes his head and then answered off-hand* It was with magic. Actually, 90 degrees counterclockwise and it would have been Hans' chest, not the wall. *He shrugs and then asks* Speaking of, are you still in the not-so-figurative dog house?  
  
 **Olivier:** Hey, there you go, now you're looking on the brightside brother. *Slipping the curtain back once he was satisfied (and now supremely relieved to know it had been the wall and not his friend), he tosses the slacks down to the bench back there to change. One leg in the pants, he pauses contemplating, then calls out.* Not sure. He, apparently, dropped by the Christmas party at the Brackners to surprise Eliza. *His fingers snap the buckle shut.* And he called to tell me he and Rachelle were in the Galapagos now. Haven't heard since. *He shrugs as he slides the curtain back again, looking at his brother.* More than I can say than Stef's heard. She's back from Austria though, tonight.  
  
 **Tony:** *Yes, what a bright side. Lifting his chin now as he heard Hans had been in the county (well, not this country) and then safely rolls his eyes because Olivier was behind the curtain* Aww, how romantic. *Does not ship it. At all.* Galapagos, sounds fun. *He nods, as if he hadn't been counting the days (hours) and then decided to thumbs up the entire outfit, adding in a wolf (haha appropriate) whistle for effect*  
  
 **Olivier:** *If his brother didn't think he could hear that eye roll in his sarcasm...* I think Eliza was more confused and flattered than thought so herself, but.  
  
*Rolling his own eyes now with a short burst of a hot exhale in a laugh, he tilts his head back. Diana was near his knees figuring the hemline out. She raises a pinch of fabric for him to consider, he nods satisfied.  Apparently not as satisfied as Tony, but he'd been waiting for the wolf's whistle since the TARDIS tie.* Suppose it does. I, personally, am just glad he hasn't been in the city, considering what's going on. *Clicking his tongue again, he sits, now just in the slacks waiting for Diana to take the jacket in for him. Turning his head after another sip of the flute, he elaborated.* What with the wolf who just died. Can't remember, had I told you it was a wolf? The 'freak accident'?   
  
**Tony:** Please, no buts *he shakes his head, taking another sip after whistling before he cocked his head in confusion. What exactly did his brother, going on in the city? Then again if it was wolf related then it made sense way he didn't know before* No, don't think you did. A wolf? *His eyebrows rose* The vamps, then? *Who else could take out a wolf, well except a Hunter, potentially*  
  
 **Olivier:** Think it must have been. *He frowns, rubbing at his bottom lip to wipe off the impression the champagne was giving of lip gloss.* Though I'd appreciate if you called your sponsor to double check too. *Exhaling and chuckling just once,* It'd be nice if the vamps and wolves could keep from antagonizing each other, but, that seems unlikely.    
  
 **Tony:** Sure *he nods, not even bothering to fight against the word 'sponsor' and then snorts* Highly unlikely. But *he frowns* that hasn't happened in years, right? Then again, wolves don't run in packs in Paris, they know better.  
  
 **Olivier:** Grazie. *He didn't honestly think Claude would know, but it was a good point to check. Of course, hunters weren't exactly on his side either, considering...his framing one of them for Dad. Still, they kept in line, wiser than the pack mentality. Chuckling absently,* Years, yeah. Hans and I helped.  
  
*An eyebrow pops up as he realizes he honestly hadn't been keeping his brother updated on this particular subject. For, er, obvious reasons.* Packs didn't use to run in Paris. There's one pack here now, which is the trouble. They're not exactly friendly to us.   
  
**Tony:** *Yeah because that was definitely something to chuckle about. Seriously, speaking of things that were wrong. Shaking his head, he took another sip of the champagne and then grumbles* Gee, I wonder why and I wonder who.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Bemused at the grumble, he teases,* You make friends everywhere you go. *He stands back up to look through the ties again, not wanting to be still while he talks about this. After scratching absently at his neck,* Ansel isn't exactly known for his restraint. Although he hasn't had to have his own ideas about leading in a while either.  
  
 **Tony:** Well you know me *he grins brightly but then it's off his face in less than a second and he's scoffing. Yeah, that was obvious.* Any way we can just kick him out of the country permanently? Maybe force him to live in an underground mine where he will eventually die of suffocation?  
  
 **Olivier:** Something tells me Stef would have a problem with the last one. *He comments idly, reaching for a maroon tie and trying it against the slack to see the colors. Hm.  
  
The irony that it was Tony advocating he kick Ansel out makes him chuckle too, though he knows he's just going to hear how wrong that is too.* You mean issue a King Olivier decree? *He looks up over his nose at his brother.* Or how else do you propose we kick him out?  
  
 **Tony:** Eh *he shrugs and then finished the rest of his champagne* No I was thinking more of a Lion King 2, Simba banishing Kovu off the pridelands, all the animals singing 'deceptiooooon, disgraceeeee'. *He paused and then inclined his head* Yeah, so like a decree. *He smirks and then exhales*  
  
 **Olivier:** You know fratello, one of these days I'm going to keep track how many different genres and or fandoms you manage to quote in one day. Impressive, though, going from Monty Python to Disney without skipping the Bible or forgetting to plug your own play. *Well, that would have been a King Olironni decree, but. Deciding against maroon, he throws that back on the counter, snapping his fingers to let it unfurl, looking at one that might have been picked out of the forest that morning. Well, if the ground wasn't covered in snow currently. Lifting it, he continues aloud,* I'd have to meet with him to issue that. Which means granting him the audience in the first place, which would only validate his bid for power here. See the problem?   
  
**Tony:** I'm going for a world record *he explained easily, smirking and then shrugging before he sighed at Olivier's explanation. Faux-Politics. Too complex for Tony to get into. Plus, he couldn't be sneaky and two-faced enough for them.* So we get the hunters to run the pack out- oh wait! I forgot, they hate you and vampires and who knows, *he gasps, putting his hand over his mouth* maybe they could actually work out a deal after all -werewolves- don't need to drink humans consistently to survive. Maybe the time of the vamps in Paris is coming to an end.  
  
 **Olivier:** I thought you won that title when you were fifteen. *He shot back just as easily, snark as easy for him as the political maneuvering he mentioned now. Bemused, he chews on his lip. Tony thought he was bad at this. Au contraire, mon frere, he almost says, before he scoffs the rest away. He was better than he thought (who else could have beat Dad?)* With Marcus Ellwood back in town as well? *He questions, spooling the tie around his thumb.* He's one of the only ones I haven't convinced not to hunt live. Although I will give him the fact he understands discretion better than half the ones Dad or his turned in the last century, *Olivier sighs,* or else he wouldn't have lasted through the nineteenth century in the first place.   
  
*Lifting his gaze again as he braces thumb and tie on the counter, he breathes in the holiday fir of the dress shop.* Is that what you want?   
  
**Tony:** Sandy Worthington took that title away from me sophomore year but not to worry *he buffs his shoulder with his knuckles* I put the grr in great. *He nods and then finds himself frowning yet again at the vampire's name. At least it wasn't 'maker'. He could have gagged.* Well it makes sense, he's an old-timer. *He squints his eyes and then speaks in a wheezy voice, wagging his finger* Why kids, when I was your age we didn't pay for blood hookers, we ran out and chomped on them every time they got too close to our yard! *He smirks again, pleased and then answers as if he's ignorant* Just the tie, I only came to keep you company. The only thing weirder than two straight guys shopping is...actually, no, that's it.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Feigns a gasp and covers his mouth, then let's out a fake sigh of relief there too.* Oh good, for a moment you had me worried. *If Sandy Worthington was a reference too, he missed it. He was delighted by the grandfather-vampire routine and didn't want to cut it off, at least, until his brother pointed out how weird their visiting the shop together was purposefully misunderstanding. He chuckled, saying first,* I needed new suits if I'm going to run for office, fratello. *There, that was sufficiently vague enough to be infuriating. Like say, purposefully misunderstanding his question.* Vampires out of Paris, completely, is that what you want. I know I don't have Ms. Travers chest, but try to follow along, *he stresses,* pretty please.   
  
**Tony:** Ap-pub! *He holds up a finger and then wags* Don't tease me like that, Olive Oil. Running for office, don't play your sick games with my heart, I am not your gameboy. *He shook his head and then threw his head back on the couch before standing again* Fiiiine, I guess not really. Obviously, I want Stef around, and Chantel can visit occasionally, at least until I nail her a couple of times, then she can leave too. *Nods*  
  
 **Olivier:** *Smirking as he went to examine the belts too, he shrugs a shoulder. The belts were for distinguishment, considering he didn't need it when his suits were tailor made here to his specifications as Diana was doing now. Plus they let him tease his brother more, considering it hid his gaze away and more importantly, his eyebrows.  
  
(He wasn't joking).  
  
But hearing Tony makes him look up again. Fiiine, not really. Huh.* Well, better answer than I expected, actually. *Until nailing Chantel and Stefanie became his only contentious points. Oh, Antonio. Stefanie didn't count anymore; not as long as she was in their house.*  
  
You know if I tell them to clear out they cease being civilized, terrorize a few African villages until I die and then come right back, si?  
  
*Chuckling at the matter of fact way he put that, he remarks* So I should give you Chantel's number then. Now, or do you want me to wait until we're home so Stefanie can see you asking me?   
  
*Legitimate question, he swears!*  
  
 **Tony:** *Whines* But I don't want them arouuuund. Make them go awayyyy and not terrorize African villages! *Humphs and then crossed his arms over his chest before he scoffs at his brother's question* No, I don't want her number from you. How lame do you think I am? I've already got the disadvantage of being the little brother of the hybrid she tutored and fucked. I don't need 'big bro' hooking me up with the number, but if you want to pretend to back home, yeah, I'll do that.  
  
 **Olivier:** *He nods his head, then tuts his tongue again to the roof of his mouth before imploring,* Bright side, fratello, bright side! Being said big brother I can tell you what she hates and likes and, *he waves his hand as if that finishes the sentence. Then chuckles as he hears his brother continue, tilts his head and points out,* Let me get this straight. You don't want to appear uncool enough to get the number from me, but, you'll play Stefanie's jealousy up, no worries. *His hand slaps his thigh, then hits into the slack pocket, pulling out one of those useless salt freshness packets and tossing it out.* Just a quick tip though, whining like that doesn't distance you so much from being the little brother of the hybrid who already nailed her.   
  
**Tony:** *Deliberating as he listens, he grins and then slaps at his thigh with a nod.* Yes.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Si, because he completely followed that. Ahuh. Luckily enough, while video games had fallen to the wayside, appearing like he knew whatever the hell you were talking about when he didn't had been bred into him before his tenth birthday. Shh, ignore that Tony possessed the single handed ability to see through his bull.  
  
When he came back out in his own clothes again (though only the trained eye could probably tell), he had a number of thoughts still running through his head, the least of which was wondering how Tony was 'working up'. Instead, he points out,* I wasn't joking about running, just by the way. Also, *and he adds quickly,* How much should I be worried about this leveling up going on?  
  
*Leveling up, ha, see! He knew how to sound like he knew what his brother just said. Totally.*  
  
 **Tony:** You're not? *He stands up from the couch again, grinning wide* Alright! Good! Why haven't you told me about it sooner? I can make posters and *he waves the leveling up comment away to instruct him not to worry about it* but, seriously, talk to me. Tell me things, you never tell me things! I have to act like a back alley bum to get anything from you.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Eying Tony's own slacks and shirt, then meeting his gaze again as he muses through a smirk,* What exactly do you imagine a back alley bum ... looks like again? And can afford for, you know, clothes?   
  
*But he shrugs this off, moving to take his wallet out, finishing the champagne and fishing out a (maybe extraordinarily so, he wasn't paying much attention) generous tip for Diana.* But nope, not kidding. What can I say, you made a decent point, easier not to have to bribe and exploit myself.   
  
**Tony:** Dirty. Track marks, courtesy of you. Disease. Rotten teeth. Getting warmer? *He smirks and then takes the tie off himself and then hands it to him* Here, I'm getting it. And ha, yes. Very true, cazzo. So you'll obviously not have much time to do it all, right? So you'll need to prioritize. Downsize. Cancel some departments. Oh! I have ideas!  
  
 **Olivier:** Courtesy of the freedom of choice but, yeah, you know, warmer, getting there. *Grinning in amusement (and maybe a bit of smug pride, oh sue him) as his brother says he's getting the tie, he points to where the scarf is. Then he leans over to fill the order form according to the sizes next to the tip, except for the suit she adjusted today, which he knew would be waiting with the cashier.  
  
Offhand,* You have ideas, yes, *waving his hand along,* I presumed you did. Except of course if I've had half the government before I run, any reason winning means I should downsize? I think it means up size. Hire new people. *Coughing under his breath,* Like publicists and people who want to make a pharma television network.  
  
 **Tony:** *Crossing his arms in front of his chest and his fingers tapping on his biceps he shakes his head* Prioritize! I mean you've got an absurd amount of money. Absurd. Ab-surd. Coming in from different places because you diversify, a common strategy to reduce risk, so I mean, how much would you really lose from ceasing the narcotics? You already shut down the human trafficking, come on Oli. It's the Christmas spirit. Think about it. Also, think about dropping that last idea, that's not yours.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Arching an eyebrow, off the top of his head he points out easily,* I, wouldn't lose anything. A large amount of employees would revolt against the loss of their favorite products. Which also would significantly decrease my ability to pay them. *As he paid them in discounts, was the unspoken obvious addition, but hey, his brother was starting small. It was arms that was nigh impossible to extricate himself from without orchestrating the downfalls of several people lest they retaliate--and that wasn't bringing into it the travel business (that aha, his brother might not know about come to think of it), which he had no interest in shutting down. Shrugging at the last, he pointed out,* I didn't mean it to be mine, merely indicated my interest in acting as an investor. You sound like you know someone interested in spear heading the project though, if you want to help me diversify 'further'?  
  
*His hand crosses his lip as he licks the pen tip to get it moving again. The smirk was small.*  
  
As his hand starts moving again he added quietly,* And I shut down the human trafficking because of my personal belief against it, that's true, but you could make the case that is what blood donors are, Tony. *He flicks his gaze up at him quietly.* But as you said. Vamps need to drink to survive. So either we come to a mutual compromise and allow it with things like health benefits and from people who volunteer, or they go back to hunting whoever they want and kill without consequences. It's complicated.   
  
**Tony:** Oh right, the favorite product that's got them addicted to it, therefore to you for providing them. Really, Oli, summing it all up to an order vs chaos argument, Mussolini would be so proud! *Ha, see?! He did pay attention when Ms....erm, Ms...damnit, what was her name?* Nope I don't know anyone who would willingly work on that with your funding, sorry. And yes, the argument could be made, but I'm saving that for a later date. That's surprisingly the -least- controversial aspect of it, which is why I'm tackling the most. Drugs don't help anyone. Oh you can't because all the gangs out there are gonna get mad and start shooting up the streets with the guns you're giving them? Oli, come on. Come on. Look me in the eye and tell me this is for the good of Paris and not just the easy way out, and maybe I'll shut up about it for a week.  
  
 **Olivier:** Mussolini? Really? *His hand slaps at the back of his thigh, feeling like he should maybe point out it wasn't the most original of arguments or calmly rational ones. Then again, he thinks to himself it had been too long since Tony snapped and went after him. Was it aggravating? Yes. Nice to see Tony more like his old pain in the ass little brother?  
  
Si, senor.  
  
Chuckling first he commented back without looking up from the order form,* Oh, I can be persuasive, brother. Besides, think of the inspiration for your OTP with us working on that together. I wouldn't insist on being copy editor, you know.  
  
*He could edit the non-magical news spectrum just fine without it already, couldn't he? Amalie would be free to broadcast whatever story she likes. Waving this off, now he stills. He sighs. Then he looks up, looks his brother straight on and speaks.* I said I'm going to run for office. Once I win, there are any number of other steps I can take that genuinely will be in Paris' best interest--diverting State money to clean up the streets and overseeing it done by dropping said former employees off myself. I did that for one woman, once before. If you recall, she insisted on coming to work for me after she got out of rehab.  
  
*He folds up the paper and he still hasn't broken eye contact.*  
  
But you're right, brother. It's not all for the good of Paris. My first priority has always been, as it must always be, to remain in power. It doesn't matter what priority number two is, if that's not true. I've never tied someone to a chair to make them take a hit, Tony, and I've never said it's easy. I inherited this as much as I did the winery, five and a half years ago. *His voice was calm, eyes set on his brothers, otherwise not moving. A second passes where he doesn't breathe. Then he brightens up, headshaking as he adds,* On the bright side, thanks for not saying told-you-so-about the idea to run.  
  
 **Tony:** *he sniffles, not being able to deny the inspiration for Cariah was thrilling but he nevertheless said to be stubborn* Carey would never work for Josiah, she doesn't mix business with pleasure. That doesn't stop some office sex against the window but she makes him suffer for it. But that's not the point! *Yeah, he remembered. Who came to work for someone who was their source of addiction to be always tempted, out of misplaced gratitude- he didn't get it. Maybe because he was wrong but nah, it was just weird. Then he scoffs once, twice, and before he does a third time he has to purse his lips* Yep, first priority. *He chuckles and then shakes his head* Yeah, no problem bro, I'm just gonna shoot up in the back alley, then I'm gonna get in a gun fight, and maybe after my life is ruined like the hundred thousands of others, maybe you'll do something about it. But then again that would involve changing your first priority so maybe not. *He claps his brother's shoulder again and then adds brightly* I'm gonna go wait in the car.  
  
 **Olivier:** *He rolls his eyes, but considering the bright ways his brother said it, finally just chuckles himself and tosses out easily,* No need for the back alley, brother, just give me a half hour and we can share a stash from the comfort of our living room!  
  
*He scoffs, but claps his brother's upper back too, then squeezes his shoulder, considering knowing how fast Tony could be when he wanted to get out.* Second priority. I guess I assumed the first went without saying. I'm working on the gratitude, remember?  
  
 **Tony:** Yeah yeah *he pushes Oli's hand off his shoulder and then raises his eyebrow. Staying put for a few seconds he shrugs and then waves his finger in a wave and points to the door* Car. Also, I'm hungry, so hurry up. *He clicks his tongue and then starts walking off so he wouldn't, you know, punch his brother in the face*  
  
 **Olivier:** *He rolls his eyes as Tony orders him to the car, but they narrow as he walks off. Sighing at the mocking tongue-click, he shakes it off without a word. What else could he do but be honest? He asked; he did exactly what he asked, he still was in trouble, ohh how shocking.  
  
Taking his sweet time at the cashier, flirting up a storm since he knew from here Tony likely could still hear him and then writing down her number. He then wears his new scarf out, walking to the car with the smug smirk safely in place as he got in the passenger seat (like Tony let anyone else drive his baby).* You know, *he says as he buckles the seat, leaning luxuriously into the leather and eying him sideways,* it is nice to hear you're still trying to save my soul. That mean you'll 'let' me try and save yours?  
  
 **Tony:** *He waited in the car after walking out with a huff, turning the car on for the heat and the radio. Of course, Olivier took his sweet time getting there. Sighing once he finally got in the car, Tony pulled off the curb and down the busy street to find the greasiest burger joint he knew* On those rare occasions you believe we have them? Sure *he restrains an eye roll* Why not?  
  
 **Olivier:** *With a soft shrug and smirk, he frees his phone from his back pocket and starts swiping through email as he contemplates it. It was easier to do when not actually looking at his brother.* Honestly? Why do you think we do? Because it seems...strange to me, you're the one of us that's so convinced we do when you're also so convinced half of us is like...demonspawn.  
  
 **Tony:** Because, Oli, divine creations don't just do good things. As God's creations we have a little something called, um, Free Will! *He lifted a hand of also! I've looked into the face of soulless and buddy, *gesturing between them before wagging his finger in a 'no'* we're not it. Also we could argue about the human body not being able to function without a soul, because I don't think it's like Sam Winchester. And even if it were, even you, oh brother of mine, are a long way off from Soulless Sam.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Faith and Free Will, and more TV references, yeah no, he still doesn't understand. With an exhale, he rubs at the back of his neck again and sets about typing an encrypted email back.   
  
He did know God existed, yes, obviously, but he doesn't quite want to believe or have faith in a God that could reject their most flawed children. What was the point of that?  
  
Looking back up as the index finger points at him, he snorts and shakes his head.* Am I then? Well, I suppose that's a relief, I have no interest in you sticking an angel in me. Well. Huh, I suppose Gabriel wouldn't be so bad.  
  
 **Tony:** *Gabriel wouldn't be so bad. Douche. Tony chuckled and then braked suddenly, knowing Olivier's seatbelt would get stuck for a good three minutes* Whoops, sorry, thought I saw a deer. *He smirks and then continues on, driving until he reached the sports pub and parked by the curb. Getting out, he reached for the parking ticket in the glove compartment with a simple, "Scuzi."  
  
Taking it out, he got out of the car and then put the parking ticket on the windshield. There, free parking! Satisfied, he walked into the pub and headed for his favorite booth.*  
  
 **Olivier:** *Thrown forward as the car screeches, he wraps his hand around the arm rest to keep from jamming his chest into the suddenly locked belt.   
  
A deer. On this highway where there's no forest for mile--oh, for heavens sakes--,* Cazzo. *He narrows his eyes to squint but smirks, giving him the impression of a weasel for a moment. Then when Tony gets out of the car, he groans and leans back, stuck.  
  
Hm. As Tony walks off, he leans into his seat, pulling down on the lever so it drops nearly to the ground. Then he fiddles with the radio until it's on full-blast playing French kiddie songs, turns the car off again and gets out, shaking his head at the ticket stuck there and scoots into the booth across from his brother.* Question, brother. If there actually was a deer, would you have sent me through the window?   
  
**Tony:** That's why you wear the seatbelts. *He shrugs, looking over the menu to see what was good enough to clog his arteries all in one go* Besides, you would have been fine, the deer wouldn't have. Do you know how many of them are killed by cars each year? It's ridiculous.  
  
 **Olivier:** Si. That is ridiculous. Says the person about to order a cow, literally. *He shakes his head, looking at the menu for his own burger and getting slightly distracted by the Baileys milkshakes.* But sending me through the window because I responded to your fandom reference in kind, that's not ridiculous at all dear brother.  
  
 **Tony:** Never not a hypocrite *He said the short version of his usual catchphrase without looking up from the menu.* Nope, not at all. Completely justified. Hi Cindy *he didn't miss a beat as the waitress came over* I'll have a triple cheeseburger with the works, extra jalapeños, grilled onions instead of the regular, hold the mayo, and can I have some extra pickles on the side? Thank you.  
  
 **Olivier:** When you consider, the Italian cuisine...*He was muttering under his breath as  Tony flirts/orders, but a bright smirk crosses his face abruptly as he looks at her too.* Oh all right, I'll have the same, with fries on the side and the Bailey's milkshake. Thank you. *He waits as she's walking away and utters deadpan under his breath,* And I can hear Nonna from here. *Spinning back and folding his arms on the table, then leans forward.* Can I ask if saying you've never claimed not to be a hypocrite actually absolves you of *being* one? Because you sound like you're okay with being one by this point.   
  
**Tony:** Oh and a glass of water for me. *He nods adding, forgetting to add a drink with his order until  Oli does.* I've learned to block out her telepathic lectures. How could I ever live otherwise? *He shrugs his shoulder and then grabs some peanuts off the container on the table and cracks them open* And here I thought you wanted me to accept myself, Oli. *he smirks and then shakes his head* Nope, I'll have to atone for it eventually. *He pops the newly liberated peanut in his mouth.*  
  
 **Olivier:** You have? *He asks brightly, nodding with a chuckle as he says offhand,* You'll have to teach me how you did that. So I can stop hearing -your- mental lectures. *He reached for the napkin, putting it on his lap and chuckling. The sound was suddenly bitter. But his eyebrows wiggle anyways,* I do you know, I really do, without you having to atone.   
  
**Tony:** Now that doesn't sound like I'd be helping myself out. *He purses his lips together and then 'hmms' in consideration before shaking his head* No, I shan't. *He reaches for another peanut, cracking it open and then shrugs, and let's that be the only response to his brother's statement*  
  
 **Olivier:** A shrug. You give me a shrug. I show concern, and, *he waves this off at his brother with a little 'pah!' and then just shakes his head, leaning comfortably back in the seat. Arm scrunching on the leather he surveys him for a long second before saying in a completely different voice,* So these posters. You have slogans in mind?  
  
 **Tony:** Well I'm hungry, concern is all you're getting. *He pops the peanut in his mouth again, his chewing the only sound heard at the table until Olivier started speaking again and asking about campaign slogans. He considered.* 'Dependable, Dynamic, Determined, D'Grey.' Or how about 'D'Grey: Already Ruling Your Lives Since 2023' or my favorite 'Democracy Is For Dicks: Vote D'Grey, Or Not, Whatever'.  
  
 **Olivier:** *It really was sad how easily he could get his brother cheery again by insulting him but, hey, he supposes he doesn't mind all that much. At least they were a bit clever (and at least Tony was smirking again).  
  
Laughing off so his chin tips back he inclines his head and says simply,* I liked that middle one. Hey, it's already been true but now you get to say it is, has the benefit of being honest. Though 'D'Grey',* he puts it in airquotes, amused when he notes the the hostess across the way had looked around for a moment,* has been since 1934 if you want to be accurate.  
  
 **Tony:** Yeah yeah *he waves the technicality off and then marvels at the fact that in just a measly 7, soon 6 years, the cartel would have reached its 100th birthday. Well, hmph, not if Tony could help it.* Ahhh but you always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest, telling the truth? Are you sure the world is ready?  
  
 **Olivier:** Ah, si, e vero fratello--,*he points at him and smirks a bit,* but this is where I have always excelled, telling the truth when they expect fallacy, showing mercy where they expect cruelty...  
  
*He smirks offhand as if to indicate and vice versa, but not crass enough to say that aloud. At the tinier round-mouth expression from Tony he pauses, then lifts his smirk himself.* As for the world...not sure we should give them the chance to not be ready, really, the world's much more adaptable than people think generally.  
  
 **Tony:** *He snorts and then finds himself laughing in spite of...well, himself* How do other people put up with you? Honestly. *He shakes his head and then cracks another peanut open and wags his finger at Oli, finally seeing eye to eye on something* On that we agree.  
  
 **Olivier:** *Laughing out as Tony finally meets his eyes again he claps once, loudly, grinning as he exclaims,* At last. Wonderful. About time. That and the tie, and the fact I should run. That's not bad for us! We might just have this brothers thing figured out one of these days.   
  
Also, ahem, *in the same tone as Tony as before,* fuck you, I'm loveable. *And just to tease,* Amalie assures me it's certifiably so.   
  
**Tony:** Yeah, one of these days, you pretentious dick. *He shook his head and then thanked Cindy as she put down the drinks and told them their burgers would be out soon. Taking a sip of water before shaking his head* Yeah, of course you are. *He scoffs* Does she? *Shaking his head again he brings the glass down and narrows his eyes, head tilting* Does she?  
  
 **Olivier:** *His shoulders shrug, hand out into the air with an offhand 'eh, what can you do' as he adds,* Clearly not today, but progress has been made.*Nodding to thank her too and sipping until he's certain to taste the Bailey's through the straw (which he bit first). The repeated question makes him blink a few times.* Yup, she does. Like I said brother, I never lie to you, just to God. *Ha! Nailed it. Then he points at the darts board over his brother's shoulder and arches an eyebrow.* After lunch?  
  
 **Tony:** *He narrowed his eyes as Olivier bit his straw like a three year old who didn't know any better and then snorted at his brother's reminder* Still as flattering as before. *Putting a peanut in his mouth and chewing, he leaned sideways to see behind his brother and then smirked* Oh yes, you're on.


	39. Spiderweb Gown

"Well, that and the fact that - as the magazine put it today, D'Grey being at an event makes it, the event."

Olivier ducks the plate with an easy side step, not bothering to turn around as he straightens his tie. He calls back to his (clearly ten years old tonight) brother,

"And you were wondering why you weren't invited."

Spoken on an easy smirk (as if Tony ever wanted to come to these things in the first place), he tucks the tie and walks away from the mirror. Daniella was meeting him there--but she was 'working.' Amusing how she said that on the phone as if he wasn't.

"Or was that because Stefanie's going?"

"I wasn't wondering anything, except for how you make it through the day with that overinflated ego of yours. Need I remind you you ~~pay~~ those magazines to paint you in a positive light?" Tony slumped down on a seat and picked up the invitation off a cushion.

"Casino night, well," Tony shrugs, "do try not to gamble away the fortune, or let Stef drink the blackjack dealer."

"Ai, fratello. If you think I have to pay them for every kind - and, by the way, true -word..."

Olivier scoffs, turning to walk away from the mirror and popping the flap on his jacket. Casino Night--ha. His brother simplified that. Tonight was the launch of a promising, young and high-minded candidate for office - that alone would have required attention. So would the fact the candidate was an Avenier; his parental unit was as useful for politics as D'Grey was for...his, aha, chosen field.

Then you consider it's the older brother of his girlfriend's best friend and keeping Stefanie from draining someone dry suddenly sounded the easiest part of the night.

"De-luuuu-sionaaaal," Tony sing-songed from his seat, throwing his head back and scoffing, incapable of holding a chuckle back either as he passed Olivier back the invitation he would need to get in (oh but no, he was Olivier D'Grey, he needed no invitation!), suddenly beaming at his brother's tease.

Olivier leans over the back of the couch as he plucks the envelope back and pats Tony's shoulder, teasing.

"Look at it this way. I gamble away the fortune and you'll never have to read those magazine articles again."

"In that case, knock yourself out." Tony smirked.

"Ooh-but what if the dealer is too _delicious_ to ignore?"

That was a definite whine, from a princess's pout on her bubblegum lips, but one look at Stef could make any man forget it. Her dress of ebony lace was backless.

Tony's head turns again to survey Stefanie as she entered the room and he had to restrain his jaw from dropping on the floor but that was probably the only control he had over his reaction.

"Speaking about too delicious to ignore, buongiorno."

Vampires were already alluring to humans, it was part of their nature and how they hunted. It didn't help when a vampire model dressed up in black lace. Stefanie was a spider, that dress was the web, and every single man around her would be flies.

Eyebrow popping as his greeting mollifies her irritation at that 'command' he gave his brother, Stefanie leans her head off the door-frame. It pops her chest naturally as she responds.

"Oh, you took the words right out of my mouth." Stefanie offers, surveying Tony up and down pointedly. Her tongue traces her bottom lip.

Olivier thinks he might as well not even be standing there in the three-thousand Euro suit he's paid an Armani-and-a-leg for. But he's mollified by his own little smirk to himself at the inner joke.

"Sadly, not literally. Quick question, Tony. If I fail to heed your brother, should I get you some to go?"

"I'll have to pass on the doggy bag, cara, thanks" he smirked, his choice of words as always was purposeful and poignant and yes, he was indeed both amused and still the slightest bit bitter but that was practically part of his entire personality by now.  
  
  


Doggie bag. Stefanie huffs indignantly, forgetting as ever (you would think, headed into a month now, that she would be getting more used to the fact she actually doesn't need breath but the opposite seemed true).

"Subtle as ever, brother." Olivier sighs, knowing the remark was a jab at Ansel. Of course, what did Stefanie expect? It wasn't as if it escaped his notice two days before she declares she was moving in here, she slept with the wolf. Not only that, but it sure looked to him like she convinced Ansel to betray her brother the same brother who's goodwill being necessary she relied upon to stay here.

(It certainly wasn't because he cared one way or the other, obviously not.)

Turning back to Olivier, he raised his wrist and tapped the non-existent watch. "Bring her home before midnight otherwise she turns into a pumpkin."

Apparently, she had expected something else than the reminder though, if her own parting words were anything to judge by.

"Oh yes, darling do," Stefanie slips her arm through Olivier's, tugging on it like she suddenly was his date and he winced, restraining the elbow-yank. His eyebrows and smug smirk remind her he was presently near her equal in strength. It's ignored. "I wouldn't miss curfew," she calls back to Tony, eyes dangerous and hot slants as she rests her free elbow on Olivier's chest and tosses her yellow hair over her shoulder to give Tony a view of her bare lower back.

"Don't wait up, _Dad._ "

Tony wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of having the last word. He really wasn't, not in the slightest bit, she would not get to walk away from this house on another man's arm (even if it was his own brother) and leave with the last word in the conversation. A rebuke was on his way, ready to strike back.

But then she turned around, swiveled, revealed the exposed back of her dress, a personal favorite and God must have bestowed that knowledge to every female he had encountered in a party dress recently (so, alright, two).

The words caught and his mouth completely dried out while his head tilted to look at the way her rear moved under the lace with every step she took in those high heels.

That was low. Below the belt low.

Haha, get it?

One of these days, Olivier swore he was going to kill someone just to shut the pair of them up.


	40. (S)eeing

So despite the fact that she had been kidnapped from school, robbed of her memory, coerced into the middle of a war centuries old, stabbed a friend and exploded a Death Eater to pieces, Nadia would have to go back to school for the next semester. This meant she had to find a way to catch up months’ worth of work, and get a head start on the months that awaited her as the O.W.L.’s drew nearer. So what did Nadia choose to do?  
  
Look into her crystal ball, of course.  
  
Devin was on his way over, given that her daddy had already expressed distaste at the amount of time she was over at the Stuarts'. Despite the fact that he was technically grounded and couldn't leave the house (ha, sure), all parents knew there was no way they were going any long amount of time without seeing each other.

Recently emboldened, and possibly just the side effect of her new-found frustrations, she had asked her father over breakfast how exactly he thought she was able to shake some sheets with her boyfriend when the Stuart house was impenetrable fortress (something they had in common) with security around every corner. Her dad had almost choked on his pancakes, the triplets appeared shocked/proud/disgusted in that order, Chace snorted and Hols laughed until pumpkin juice came out of her nose over the words 'shake some sheets'.  
  
Thanks to her little 'outburst', 'sleepovers' were on standby. Which was honestly laughable, but how exactly did you explain to your father that his recently deflowered youngest daughter couldn't enjoy the removal of 'that pesky pleasure preventer' (as Irene so eloquently called it) because any chance could wind up with her becoming part of a statistic? Nadia bet it would start like 'daddy, you might not believe it but now you're gonna wish me and Devin stay together forever!'  
  
Understandably, she was irked. If her sex life had a Facebook, it would have changed from 'celibate' to 'sexually active' to 'it's complicated' all in a matter of 12 hours. Not only that, Nadia was really starting to feel the pressure of her parents watching her every move. Thankfully, school was starting in a couple of days, unless a section of Board and other concerned parents managed to actually shut it down for inspection and revamping like they wanted to. At this point, all Nadia really wanted was to have some privacy again.  
  
She was actually determined to get some studying done when he got here actually! Not that it had ever worked before, but they couldn't exactly do much about it could they? Nadia would have to call Audrey and leave her a message about where she was on this. Nadia's relationship with Audrey was...odd. She had never had anything bad to say about her ever; Audrey had just been a classmate when she was still at Hogwarts.Now, sometimes it felt like Audrey somehow got to see more of her boyfriend than she did. Which was of course, preposterous, because as Alcott had accurately described, she and Devin had evolved into the cosmic being known as Navin -trademark by Irene Burns- and had hardly left each other's side.

Except of course when she couldn't sleep over and when her mom complained about not seeing her around often and when he had to get his butt kicked by his hybrid trainer with a crush on him, and when they both acknowledged that why yes, there are other people in their life that would like to spend time with them as well. Not to mention, Audrey was plenty busy herself, so of course she couldn't spend much time helping but somehow it always felt like so long. That was excellent time management which Nadia was distinctly jealous of. How exactly did one girl manage two jobs, four younger siblings, and help Devin with the rune on his hand whilst researching ways to help Devin and her with their steadily growing problem?  
  
In times of stress, Nadia meditated which almost always involved her crystal ball. Not known for bringer of good news anymore, Nadia still felt a need to refer back to it. She hadn't wanted to alert Harper while he was at home back with his family and recuperating, but ever since Alcott had broken his father's spell on her mind, and once things settled down, Nadia felt like her...brain itched. That was one way to put it.  
  
Anxious, Nadia tried to pass off most things as part of what she went through. She couldn't stand the silence, and that was because her mind filled the emptiness of sounds with the screams she had spent weeks surrounded by. Even now, her radio blasted a song because the house was too quiet: Chace was with Alphonse and Lance, Hols with either Al or Lynn, the triplets man who knew what they were always up to, her dad was at work and her mom was preventing herself from breathing down her neck like she wanted to do.  
  
She'd also felt like her magic was a bit...out of tune. Like someone had messed with her radio settings and now whenever she clicked on her shortcuts instead of being delivered to her 2000s hits or her Spanish Rock songs, she got Norwegian Operas and American Folk music. For instance, she had cracked a mirror the other day for staring at it too intensely. Julian had obviously had some very brotherly words to say about that one that earned him a wooden rolling pin to the head.  
  
All in all, Nadia needed to find a way to...reboot, or so. She wasn't a creature of snark, or anger, or even annoyance so this had to stop, and it had to stop soon. Pretty please. Divination had always been good to her, until of course it hadn't. Her vague feelings had turned into actual visions through the crystal ball last year, and a swarm of forewarnings this year. Right now, she was going off the belief of 'it can't get any worse'. Nadia should have known obviously, it can always get worse.

Sitting down at the chair in front of her desk, she put her crystal ball in front of her and breathed out until the music blasting became part of the background noise, there but ignored. Putting her hands to the crystal ball, she felt the usual spark of the connection come alive in a surging charge. The mist inside the crystal ball began to form and swirl as she stared in, and then quickly as it came it left, and then images started to flash before her eyes, faster than ever. Before, she had only managed glimpses, every time it came with a gut feeling over it, but now it felt like she was watching a movie on fast forward; she was getting everything but it was moving too fast for her to catch up.  
  
Her hands tightened around the crystal ball, her eyes wide, almost blank as they became mirrors for the images that passed by, reflecting the divinations back at themselves, her mouth slightly open but otherwise unmoving. She couldn't pull away.

The universe wasn't funny. 

Three years of attempts to ask her out (and cowardly backings out by yours truly, yeah yeah), five months of dating (interrupted by yours truly being an asshole, fine). Enduring normal puberty things: kidnapping, werewolf attacks, comas, amnesia episodes leading to a slight misunderstanding of the stabbing nature, holy churches burning down around them -- and gym class. But this? Now, when they finally were through it, over the mountain, and "Atlanta had burned" (as Eliza put it, and no that didn't put a pit in his stomach), the universe repays them with--

"Fuck my celibate life." Devin groans under his breath as he wipes over his face, hard. He pulls himself off the path, doubling over and landing hands to knee-caps hard. Breath harsh, he fights to even it and arches his back up in a rear jerk and looks at the sun. It glares at him, and he glares back, like if he just focused enough he didn't have to squint, he could stand the millions of radioactive rays burning skin and retina from sheer stubborn rejection of pain. Wasn't that what the mark was supposed to be? 

When he squints and turns his cheek, his breath steady if hard, Devin allows: no. No, this mark was meant to do two things. One, apparently the fact that he and Nadia were truly in love was a dangerous impossible-not-to-make-babies dilemma and two, to protect the fact that humanity still had a fucking place in this supernatural world. 

If anyone had said to Devin a year and a half ago that he was going to be the tattooed poster-boy for celebrating the apparent mundane nature of being "just" a wizard, standing up for the unenlightened, non-magical, non-supernatural beings -- well, he'd have hit you. That wasn't 'probably', Devin had abundant evidence. How many times had he beat Sam up?

Of course, Sam had been on his side at that time.

And now his cousin was dead, and Devin refuses to believe Eliza and Sienna: there was no way Sam had been at Notre Dame to rescue anyone. At most, he'd been there to kidnap Eliza (again), and Devin didn't understand when kidnapping had become synonymous with saving. He could get why she wanted to tell Aunt Ingrid it was, why Sienna would lie (that girl didn't need a reason to tell the truth)...but Rory's dead silence surprised him. Complicit agreement wasn't Palmer's usual stance on these things. And Devin knew: he recognized the look of quiet disapproval and ceding to your friends opinions on things. It was one he worn too many times.

If anything, the knowledge that even Sam - who aided the bastards - was dead, strengthened Devin's resolve to fight for the sake of humanity. Was it such a noteworthy understanding, he wonders as he begins to pick up his jog again, that if you got someone to go along with your insane, medieval dogma, not killing them was kind of the least you could do?

So no, he doesn't regret this mark on his arm (his pace seems to pick up as he thinks that) - but right now he definitely resents it. The only part of it he can think of amusing -- because seriously, if he heard one more joke about his celibacy -- was the fact that this mountainous path has him a few hundred yards in front of agents relying on brooms to keep up with him. He was running to Nadia's house. The Stuart "fortress", as she was calling it, was long behind him. See, this way he could continue on the 'Spartacus' learning curve *and* go see his girlfriend. 

His time with Nadia had become something precious and unacceptably quantifiable between the heightened security, their impending return to school and O.W.L.S weighing over his head, and sessions that were meant to keep this mark in check. Devin ducks a branch, whipping the twig out of the way with a swat, like too a bug. Dirt kicks up behind him, loosens rocks until they tumble over the side of the narrow turn.

And it was extremely unfair that this lift in his work-out clearly came from Tony and Audrey being at each other's throats. How was it that two people sworn to aid him could despise each other so entirely -- and why was he always the one with an extra lap or two around the bloody lake?! Well, Tony, if your goal is to make it impossible to act on this overwhelming need to kill you because Audrey does it instead, congratulations! Mission accomplished. About as effectively as when the Americans waved that banner -- you know, only about a decade too early.

Oh, all right, calling Tony an American was too far. He took that one back. There was no denying the too-touchy bastard was Italian to his core, that was for sure.

It was Tony's edicts that have him running now, but as Nadia's house start to come into view, he puts them both from his mind (Lord knew Audrey and Tony would stomp back into his life soon enough), halting at the back door, but only after running up the last stairs. He smirks back over his shoulder, having to raise his hand to his eye level and squint to make out the two supposedly protecting him. Yeah, great job guys.

Why was he going along with his father's imposed grounding again? He literally could outstrip every one of them now. (Oh right, because Lynn's acceptance to Stanford for next year still sat on their center table and he didn't want to make it worse).

Chace seems to spy him, opens the patio door with a flick of his fingers, then points behind him: God forbid Dev's appearance interrupt him from his and Alphonse’s video game, or anything. He shook his head, tossed a pillow at him for the single "disapproving" look he got -- even if he got the brother's point; even as you point a boy to your sister's bedroom, you can't look happy doing it. Even if that boy was now barred from --

The thought seems to fly from his mind as he took the stairs two steps at a time at first, then one, then crawls to a stand still at the top as if Devin was struck. His jawline hardening and eyes narrowing, he felt his heart rate quicken as he moves the balls of his feet.

There was something wrong.

He knew. The creeping sense of unease snakes down his spine; his hand began drawing his jacket back to reach for the gun Tony loaded for him with special bullets. Through the window he passes, slow, the sun was slipping behind clouds. Smiling photographs of Nadia's family peek at him from a shadowed wall, seeming to mock and haunt his approach. Hugging the wall as he rounds a corner, the back of his teeth clench.

Nadia's door was open.

The single thought that something might have hurt her lurches him forward only for all of D'Grey's "helpful" little reminders that supernatural creatures had speed and strength on their side to surge in his mind. Denying himself the element of surprise would be akin to suicide (and that was putting what Tony said too nicely). Sleeve rolled up, the mirror distorts his image, giving him a clear shot black tattoo raw and burning as it stretches up his wrist. In fist he held the barrel of his gun, the other hand he moved to push the door back further. It creaks - a jarring echo in his ear - as it swings back, showing him the room.

Nadia's room usually greets him with waves of warmth - of bright, Spanish colors and family photographs, with memories of lazy afternoons spent wasting time, Batman marathons, chess tournaments, of her trying to teach him the harmonica, of her brilliant smile. Now he's doused in ice water, cascading over him, chilling his bones and setting him to rely on the warmth from a blackened tattoo. Something was in this room, something supernatural, something dangerous --

Yes, Audrey, I know, keep my eyes open and mind clear, but this is Nadia's room --

When he steps in, gun cocked, blind in the instinct of where to point the gun, it takes him a moment to understand he levels at the very girl he means to protect -- takes him a moment to understand she was shaking, that tears were rolling down her cheeks, that she clutches at a glass ball like it kept her alive. Her sharp, shout of surprise jars him forward again and he lunges, letting the gun clatter to the floor to free hands to wrap around her shoulders again. The metal barrel strikes her wood floor, but his eyes were full of her wild-eyes, her distraught head shaking that cast curly hair every which way, obscuring his vision.

"Nadia?! Nadia--Nadia--"

He couldn't stop saying her name. If he did, he might forget who he held, whose pink throat was so close to his taut finger tips, who was shaking with a kind of power he'd never felt and hated -- hated with anger so red, so intense, it gnaws at his throat, chews on his insides, grinds his teeth with a want -- no, need, definite need, to just *end* all.

"Nadia-!" He says again, this time louder, as the window across from them opened and door behind them snapped closed.

The crystal ball dropped from her hands onto the desk with a thud, rolling off the wooden surface and onto her area rug, muffling the sound and possibly preventing it from shattering. Her surprise had left her mouth in a sharp gasp and though her hands were free of the object she Divined with, her hands were still clutching thin air and the images didn’t stop. Past, present, future, she felt like she was seeing it all simultaneously but she couldn’t make sense of it; she didn’t have the capacity, the skill, or the training to understand what she was seeing.  
  
No, wait, she did have the capacity.  
  
Hands suddenly at her shoulders jolt her upright not in surprise, she already knew someone was in the room, someone who kept calling her name. Instead the sudden movement came from a sudden chill that ran down her back, and her flesh prickling with tiny bumps. Her adrenaline began to rush and she felt just like she did on that ill-fated day weeks, if not a month already ago, when she’d been dragged from her cell. The moment her life was in danger, she triggered the fight-or-flight response. In that dark and musty cell, it had been nearly almost flight.  
  
The door closed shut as the windows blew open, and Nadia turned around to face her would-be attacker. With the same energy she channeled to her fingertips to scry the images from the crystal ball, she instinctively pushed him back, her arms raising and her palms striking his chest as tears in her eyes suddenly dried up. The magic left her hands like a shotgun going off, the kick-back knocking her away a few feet in the opposite direction.  
  
That was the reboot.  
  
Eyes blinking rapidly in her daze, she raised a hand to the side of her head where it pounded loudly and painfully like a long-overdue migraine. Before she could make sense of the situation, before she could place herself, or process exactly what had just transpired, Nadia gasped again and moved forward, kicking the gun out of the way with frightened swallow (why had he taken that gun out?), only one word on her lips, “Devin!”


	41. Darrell Avenier

Some might have called him overeager, starting fundraising this early but his campaign manager insisted and giving her streak of being right, Darrell found it difficult to argue. There was much to plan, that was true, but he had mostly overseen, given the nod of yes for approval, the head shake to disapprove, so in the perspective of things, as far as the fundraiser went, all he had needed to do was show up.

Well, and get fitted for a new tux. The company tonight was used to a higher standard than most. Darrell had to admit, this was not his target demographic, but if he could charm them for one night, that would really boost the campaign fund tremendously.

As usual in the world, you had to spend money to earn money. The location, the staff, the decoration, and the furniture were the best money could rent. Or rather what his own money could rent. Thankfully, he'd had his eyes set on this position since he was young, and he saved accordingly.

The basis was simple enough: the party was free to enter with an invitation but if you wanted to play at the tables, and there quite the variety, you had to donate. Cash, check, and even credit was acceptable. Just a simple donation, and you were given what amounted to 1000 euros in chips, however much your donation. It didn't matter, because you couldn't cash out but the first five people with the most winnings would receive a little prize at the end of the evening, just so the competitive edge was still there.

Besides, Darrell quickly realized that almost all the guests were acquainted with another; the competitive edge was already there.

"Vodka cranberry two, cranberries, if that is at _all_ possible," Stefanie wheedles. She gets her way easily, with eyebrow flicks and lashes batting to the very kind bartender (and oh all right, yes, probably the vampire-ess pheromones). Sadly, he was not as delicious as she'd hoped, but she was holding out for the blackjack dealer. Presently, they were hidden behind Daniella and Amalie Stefanie has a suspicion that table seemed to be getting more luck than others but she ignores it. Olivier had joked to Daniella as she swept him off when they arrived that it felt like he was being shepherded between women tonight, but that he didn't mind much.

Men, she thinks as she accepts the martini glass, putting Tony's arched heartbeat and swallowed hurt-hiss from mind.

"Mm, merci, grazie." She picks the cranberry by the stem, squeezing the deliciozo berry between her teeth until they were stained plausibly and sucking on it as she surveys the crowd.

To the bartender (who wasn't staring, he'd swear that to his wife later), she chuckles under her breath and adds by way of explanation, "I'm a tiny bit hungry. Don't tell anyone, cheri, but models can have very hearty appetites."

Open bar, that was the key to the success, and a tool for Darrell to talk his way into more generous donations. It didn't impose limits, but everyone here had a reputation for sophistication that wouldn't have them drinking excessively anyways, and the bartenders had their instructions too.

Instructions one bartender was deliberately ignoring by serving a person more than one drink at a time but who could blame him? Darrell would be willing to break a few rules for a woman that beautiful too.

"It's true, Gaspar," he spoke also to the bartender as he approached though he faced the woman, "models have the reputation for being insatiable." Darrell grinned and extended his hand.

"Darrell Avenier, mademoiselle, thank you for coming tonight."

Mm. Stefanie swallowed the berry all at once with a little smirk and eye pop as she was approached. Years ago, it might have intimidated her, but the years that passed were filled with an endless stream of similar such approaches. She tells herself she doesn't even bat an eye and lets the stem flutter gracefully from her fingers to the napkin before taking his hand.

"Enchanté." She offers, smile sly in pleasure.

Aha! Wait, Avenier, as in she was being addressed by her host. That was priceless.

And also, damn, Amalie, how were you hiding this one away? Uncomfortably aware of his heart, she was distracted by his grin. It lit up his face, might even have tricked her to believe her heart was beating.

"And as much as I usually enjoy," she takes her hand back, but effortlessly shrinks closer, "breaking, such stereotypes I must admit that in this case what you've heard is quite accurate. Though I suspect I might have a few surprises in the matter just yet." Her words were a tease.

Yes, a few surprises, namely the fact that hot, warm-blooded tall male seemed to equal hunger doubling. For a wide-eyed moment she wonders what it would taste like to lick blood off his dark neck would he actually taste like chocolate?

 _Host, Stefanie_ , she reminds herself, _eating him would not make the most seamless transition back into Society there ever was._

But she could make him forget -

"And please. Call me Stefanie."

"Ah, well, I do have first hand experience," he admitted with a chuckle that bordered on sheepish but didn't really get there.

"And I sure hope so," he added with a nod as he took his hand back. Her touch was cooler than he expected, even in early January with an air-conditioned room.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Stefanie. Tell me, are you enjoying yourself?" He motioned out with a hand, gesturing the casino tables, the atmosphere, the company, all of the above. It was an interesting gesture to make, from her perspective. Like he'd put so much effort into everything just on the hopes that one, tiny thing could appeal to everyone the package being thus both less important and...everything, all at once. Stefanie chuckles, letting her hand grace back to wrap around the glass, determined to keep her eyes on his. Otherwise, he might just be too tempting.

"I am," she says warmly, though she'd been enjoying herself all evening. The look on Tony's face when he saw her in this dress alone had been priceless. "Though truth be told, I seem to have better luck with the bartender than the tables tonight."

She winks at him, purposefully swirling the berry still floating in her drink and sidling up a little bit closer to him.

"And first hand experience? Sounds like you're luckier than me tonight as well. Color me intrigued."

Or really, color her in any shade of blush, red, pink, rouge something. Stef had noticed Darrell's heartbeat pick up a tad as he held her hand up in greeting, and knew that gnawing hunger ever-present now wasn't the only consequence of being low(er) on blood.

"Cards are infinitely more difficult to charm than people, otherwise I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem." He grinned, licking his lips and then chuckled as she commented that he seemed to be lucky himself.

"I would say luck had nothing to do with it, but that wouldn't be entirely true." A certain part of this life was luck. Some people had it, some people didn't, and there was nothing you could do about it. The 95% else though? That was entirely in their control, that was his belief.

"So tell me, Monsieur Avenier. Why should I vote for you?"

Then she taps the tip of her nose with the back of her nail, feigning oops, leaning closer to whisper, "Or am I not supposed to mention that yet?" He hadn't actually announced, after all.

Smiling wide at her question, he tilted his head, "Well it's not official, but I could give you an exclusive preview. You are a registered voter of Paris, right?" He teased.

"Oh, exclusive preview--" Stefanie hums just as teasingly, as she cocks her head back. Her hair slips in a light cascade down her back, both bemused and clearly pointing out 'is that supposed to impress me?' as she echoes him with delight under her breath as she cuts herself off to listen to the rest.

Which...suddenly brought up an interesting question for her, though she didn't show a flicker of it. Could she vote? Yes, she was a registered citizen of Paris in that she had lived there for four years now (or owned her flat)--but. Well, bluntly, could the dead vote?

Settling for smirking and clucking her tongue behind her upper teeth in a tiny sigh and tut, she offers back, "And would you only indulge me if I am?"

"If you weren't I'd be even more inclined to indulge in conversation more geared around you than myself, but as I keep being reminded, I am here to sell myself."

It was half a joke, as he didn't really need reminders of how to increase people's perceived value of him, especially as he knew this was all about what he could do for them. Granted, a good two thirds of this room didn't really care, and just wanted to spend a good time and feel like they're being generous while they're at it. That suited Darrell, just fine. He and his team would put that money to good use.

"A politician who doesn't enjoy talking about himself?" Stefanie echoes with mute amusement dancing through her eyes. (And yes, Olivier, she heard that from here. Narcissistic wanker. Of course, Olivier D'Grey was perfect acquainted with vampire abilities he knew that. That was why he said it.)

"See? I'm well versed in breaking stereotypes too, we've already got that in common," Darrell gestured between them with a grin after a light-hearted chuckle.

"It's like my mother used to say, one foothold, just one, that's all you need and then you can go from there." He wasn't too sure how accurate that was as far as actual climbing went but he stuck by it, if only out of unwavering respect for the woman who'd taught him almost everything he knew (his father didn't like to take credit).

Her hand lifts off the martini glass, naturally falling to the counter and just barely grazing his cuff. Smile still natural, she adds almost out of the corner of her mouth.

"You know, I'm surprised we haven't met before. Or I would be. If I wasn't convinced your sister's been hiding you."

Read: if Olivier and Tony weren't treating her like a glass Cinderella. Of course, she was grateful to them for it, but...still.

"You know Amalie?" Darrell asked a bit surprised, his gaze quickly searching his younger sister and found her next to Daniella at one of the blackjack tables, the two probably hustling the poor dealer out of all the fake chips. He didn't see how his sister would meet a model, when she spent half of her time with her nose pressed against the screen of her laptop and the other time sticking that same nose wherever she smelled a goldmine of news.

After he looks back from Amalie and Daniella, Stefanie has already situated herself a tad bit closer. Yes, mostly in spite and no, thank you, she did not need fresh air. (What she really needed was pulsing through that warm, mmm-gorgeous, body of his but Stefanie had always been stubbornly defiant.)

"You musn't blame her too much, she was probably looking after my well-being."

"Touching sibling loyalty."

You could say Stefanie knew a little something about that but then she didn't want to equate Darrell disregarding his sister's protectiveness with her own twit of an abandoning-brother.

Darrell nodded, leaning his elbows back on the bar, continuing with a smile.

"Something tells me, cherie, there is no coming back from you."

Stefanie just tilts her head, pleased by the (completely accurate) description as she adds,

"You could say that. But something tells me, cheri, you enjoy a challenge."

"I do," he agreed with her description of him, nodding, "in every aspect of my life. I tend to get a little bored otherwise, how about yourself?"

"A bit." She offers as explanation, free hand lifting her glass for another sip. "I know Daniella better. But, then again some days I feel I don't know her at all."

"You and the rest of the world, including her," he added the last part in a whisper, "and you're free to say you heard that from me, I can get away with it. To a point." He loved Daniella as if she were his own sister, and at the same time couldn't stand her in the same way he couldn't stand his own sister. It made perfect sense, trust him.

Stefanie thought Daniella both strove for that...and was perfectly aware she didn't know herself at all at the same time. Wiping a stray line of juice from her lip with her tongue, the sly little smirk has returned as she leans a little bit closer to Darrell.

"Would you have preferred I'd have said she was due a swift reprimanding for neglecting to introduce us sooner?" He teased, adding after another sip and setting the glass down, "Because I thought about it." As if he could reprimand her about anything anymore.

"Oh?" She smiles, interest piqued at his whisper tickling her neck, "I will be sure to credit you, yes. How do you know Daniella? As for Amalie, ohh...do be kind, I implore you. As you said, she likely means only to keep you safe."

"Apart from her being the first pain-in-my-ass?" He grinned, shaking his head slightly to insinuate he was joking (half joking). "We went to school together, her and Amalie were in the same grade. Long story short, she was obnoxious and bratty and Amalie was as quiet as a door mouse, and they managed to balance each other out." And Darrell got to be there to yell at them for getting in trouble. Dani resented it, naturally, she was already emancipated at that time, very much you-don't-tell-me-what-to-do but Darrell made it clear as long as his sister was involved, oh yes, his input was going to be there solicited or not. 99% of the time it wasn't.

He picked up the drink Gaspar made for him without his asking and raised the glass, "To wherever we go from here."

He would take only a sip, knowing he needed to stay sober more than anyone else in the room. Despite her sneaking suspicion they had much more in common than breaking stereotypes--and despite her soft chuckle at the clichéd line, when he mentioned his mother, she softened. It was an instinct. Darrell was being truthful; she could hear it in his steady heartbeat, calm and invigorating as a drumbeat in her ear.

So she raises the glass as he does, adding with a tiny smirk, "And to being lucky in the future."

Was that an innuendo? Oops, why, maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe she was too aware that part of her brain was contemplating how she could get him alone for just a quick sip and knew she shouldn't let herself be alone with him.

His wide grin tightened some until it resembled a counterpart of the smirk she offered, catching the double meaning, intended or not, and knowing he was gaining far more amusement from it than he should have. His campaign manager was already glaring daggers at him from the other side of the room. Her pointed expression behind her small-framed glasses seemed to say 'i said mingle, not flirt, and move on already!' Thankfully, Darrell had just become near-sighted for the time being.

She clears her throat as she casts her glance over his shoulder, then back. Her smirk was back.

"And, a challenge? Moi?" Her hand leaves her chest to float back near his elbow, toying with her bottom lip with her teeth as she chuckles. "I agree entirely. I've been held back too long," her heart aches, "...it's...time to find those footholds your mother talked about."

Determined to listen now instead, he wasn't surprised her answer was as short, concise and coy as it was. He was getting the distinct impression that was a usual for her. There was however a hint of sincerity that had him nodding earnestly, a smile on his lips again after licking them.

"It takes some trial-and-error," Darrell warned, "but I'm sure you'll get there. And if you are looking to more literally stretch your legs, soon I'll actually be going door to door and introducing myself to Paris, once I officially announce I'm running, I mean. If you find you and I have more in common than breaking the mold, you should join my team and me. Of course," he laughed a bit, "first I'll actually have to successfully sell myself as a candidate to you, unless you vote simply on looks in which case...the odds are stacked for me."

Greatly amused by his eager little nod, the boyish joy there endearing to her and familiar, Stefanie nods back in kind. Of course, maybe she should say 'manly' joy, because despite the shiny eyes, his lip-lick and smirk all scream the fact that he was ripping her dress off mentally.

She listens with all apparent earnesty, though his blood was rushing in excitement, warmed by his own laugh and grin. Stef mimics that too. At least he'd take her 'I want to eat you' expression as sex.

"There's only one occasion I vote on looks alone, monsieur," she chuckles with her finger up to indicate the 'one'. "And that's the private mirror show, 'Should I Wear This?' Is that what you're running for?"

Her free hand has returned to her drink, taking the beat to smirk and sip.

"Though you're right, the odds are definitely stacked in your favor if the question is 'Would You Look Good On Me?'"

She winks, then clears her throat and with all appearances of rejoining seriousness as she sets the martini glass down, she continues.

"But you're speaking of canvassing, so, in that case go ahead. Sell yourself to me."

Hm. Stef did try to make that sound less flirtatious. She could see Tony's grey 'I don't think you even tried at all' star sticker now.

"No," he admitted with a small smile again, setting the drink down permanently after a final sip, obviously aware that the distance between them had shortened in the brief expanse of time that they had begun conversing together. His tone mirrored the intimate atmosphere they had created for themselves among the larger party. It was a bubble destined to be popped and interrupted, but Darrell was a man who wasted not.

Her next cheeky comment elicited a delighted laugh he made sure to contain, despite his great amusement, the resulting smirk he was less successful at keeping away.

"Okay, I'll start by asking you one question. Do you happen to know Paris' motto?"

Was it her pheromones or her cheek that was rushing through his blood, starting his heart, blanketing him in so much heat? Stefanie wonders, drawing herself into that warmth - or well, she supposes more accurately, she'd drawn him in. The effect she'd had on men as a model was tenfold increased now, but she thinks, it was just as much his charm as anything of hers that had their conversation so intimate. After all. Had he been boring and dull, or rude, or anything but a genuine pleasure to talk to thus far--

\--well, she'd have eaten him. Host or not. That was what compulsion and being escorted by Olivier D'Grey was for.

So, see? She was on her best behavior! Stefanie smiles softer as she tosses her hair over her shoulder, "I don't, actually. But I'd love to. I'd love, to get to know Paris the way it really is, not painted pictures and.." She grumbles, "false magazines." Then she brightens, adding, "It's something I love about your sister's pieces, that they're not...the false narrative. So, yes. What's the motto?"

"The false narrative," he used her words for it as they were equal parts diplomatic and accurate (as well as more polite than anything he would have said), "is unfortunately and quickly becoming the reality. My sister, it seems like she's on a one-woman mission to discover and publish the truth. The truth, however, has become what people choose to believe." He took a pause, smiling briefly holding up a finger."But, I'll get back to that. Paris' motto in Latin is 'Fluctuat nec mergitur', it's translated in French as 'she is tossed by the waves but does not sink'. The coat of arms of Paris depicts a ship floating on a rough sea. If you'll forgive me for the cliche, every ship needs a captain."

That makes Stefanie laugh, responding easily, "You're forgiven. But tread carefully, monsieur, these waters be treacherous."

Ha. As she took a sip and finished off one martini, Stefanie thought: oh yes, they are, and you don't know the danger you're in as we speak.

Darrell grinned briefly and continued, "Bear with me on the analogy for a few moments longer. For years this city has been navigated by sub-par leaders through waters infested with all kinds of dangerous sea creatures, and as the sailors get picked off, eaten and drowned, previous captains have called from their luxurious cabins 'everything is under control'.

Paris saw for themselves that this is far from being under control when one of our most sacred, valued, and loved landmarks was half burned to the ground. It was painted as a victory for Paris, a terrorist group most didn't even know existed was thwarted, and the people are saved! Saved? Most people didn't know they were in danger to begin with. How could an entire terrorist group have been in Paris for years without their knowledge? The government's knowledge?

Simple answer: the government hasn't existed. It's been the puppet show of, hmm," he looked around and found himself grinning again though not in lighthearted amusement, "a few here."

Knowing as she did, what Olivier's response would be that their ignorance of their danger hadn't erased the fact that Parisians _were_ living in danger she didn't actually need his scoff in her ear. Was she surprised he was listening? No, of course not. Subtly, as she drew nearer and nearer to Darrell while she listened, she cast a glance over his shoulder to where D'Grey was listening. The 'few' he mentioned. He seemed more insulted that it wasn't the 'one' who was there. There was a small smile on his lips, quiet and unremarkable as D'Grey listened.

Stefanie near bites her tongue to keep it restrained. Thankfully, Darrell's speech wasn't over and she found herself agreeing more and more with him. Her smirk flicks up every time he repeated her words.

Darrell turned back to Stefanie, and for all his talk of not being arrogant enough to talk about himself, Darrell knew that once he did start talking, there was very little that made him stop.

"And those that fought for Paris, for that is how it was written in the false narrative," he winked at her after using her words again before continuing, "they went home. Left behind the ashes, the destruction, the corpses, of citizens and tourists as well, for us to clean up the mess. Paris didn't win, that fight was never about Paris, and yet this city has to suffer it. It has been a playground, and a battleground, and Paris is neither. Paris is my home, it's our home. Home," he stressed, "not a tactical advantage.

Poverty is at all time high, crime is a little lower than normal, sure, it has to be when it is not being reported, but violent deaths are higher than ever. Stabbings, overdoses, rapes, shoot-outs with automatic firearms, not semi-automatic, I'm talking military-grade weapons. On our streets, happening right under our noses."

Well, of course there were. D'Grey was selling them.

"Paris needs a strong leader, a captain, willing to fight for the entirety of Paris, not just for the benefit of a few. It needs someone who loves this city, who wants to return this city not to glory, but to safety and dependability. A leader that recognizes that every person is important, that this is not one group's, or one man's, city, it belongs to all of us. And we have a say in what goes in our home, and the way we've lived before is no longer acceptable.

Every ship needs a captain, but it wouldn't get anywhere without a united, motivated crew. People follow strength, and they follow compassion; they follow confidence as well as honesty. They follow commitment, to them, to their livelihood, to the betterment of our home.

I believe," he finished, "I am that leader."

Slowly, Stefanie realized he was done, which reminded her she had to do more than stare, entranced and enamored by the bright, shiny words he spoke. Charisma drips from this man in front of her; his words were as delicious as he looks to be, all hopeful and dotted with words like "safe" and "dependable", which weren't things that Paris had been in a century.

Actually, she could almost hear Olivier's argument, his father had been dependable. Only in the worst way, but it was true. The country literally couldn't live in what was acceptable before: Remington was dead. Stefanie almost tells him this, recalling after her privilege in the information the danger that Tony would be in if someone were to begin poking around it.

"That certainly," she chuckles, dry, "is a passionate sales pitch."

Oh, Lord did she hope she remembered to breathe near the end of that.

"I practice in the mirror," he poked a little fun himself, because while that was certainly true, and the extended analogy wasn't something he came up with out of the blue, he was entirely truthful, honest about what he said and how he felt. An honest politician, he knew it seemed very unlikely. And to a point, he realized impossible, for there were always some secrets to be had. Yet secrets carried too much weight, and holding on to them only made you slower.

"And ambitious." She smirks, light, "Considering the 'few' here," ha, she heard Olivier scoff again, that was fun, "...who would say that it is Parisians themselves who acquiesced. The government was aware, you're right, of the terrorists - I would venture a guess they created them inadvertently."

It seemed he had caught Stefanie's continued interest, if not sold her on him already, but the former would be enough. That 'sales pitch' was literally only the beginning of him, and everything else he could say, and prove himself to be, was just further appealing. Darrell wasn't entirely modest, after all.

"Like I said," Darrell grinned, tilting his head, "or rather like you correctly deduced, I enjoy a challenge." And he knew it would be challenging, but he had growing support and he wasn't alone in his vision.

"But more than that?" Stefanie adds, "There is such loyalty to the central, authority, the State of France..."

Stefanie tosses a few strands of hair over her shoulder as she smiles.

"They like to be told what to do. Encouraging them to think and participate...well, Monsieur Avenier, I do believe you have your work cut out for you." She picks her glass up again, her other thumb brushing against the flash of his wrist as she adds playfully mid-toast, "But it's work I would love to be a part of indeed."

Somewhere behind them, Olivier raised a glass to them both as well, small smile now wide.

"It's difficult to give up something you never had- very few people alive remember how it was before the government was essentially bought out. It became almost habit after so many decades, but finally, the foothold is here." He nodded, listening and agreeing to the fact yes, France was used to trusting in the central authority; it was a republic. That was more than alright; being mayor wasn't his endgame.

"Beauty and brains," he commented after she correctly described the current political climate, with a growing smirk after another lick of his lips, "I am in trouble." The smirk changed to a simple grin to hear that she would want to be a part of it. He nodded, thinking, one down, just three million to go.

"You catch on quick," Stefanie remarks with her glass held a little higher.

After taking a sip in honor, Stefanie adds with a lilt to her voice, "I suppose in the interest, of full disclosure, I should tell you I came here tonight escorting D'Grey." She gestures over her shoulder with a tiny shrug, not looking back at him.

"Is that so?" He questioned with a growing curiosity, looking over her shoulder as she gestured.

"Though I think, you might be surprised how much the two of you are in agreement. Except for the obvious."

That Olivier thought he was that leader, she meant, although there was a lot more obvious than that. Strangely, she thought the largest difference was in the way Olivier spoke of Paris it wasn't his home, it was just his, plainly, and he parroted his father every time he did it. Though Stefanie doesn't doubt he loves it, Roma was his heart's home. Paris was an outpost of an empire.

That was quite the date, and yet she had been convinced by his pitch. There was a slight discrepancy here, one he suspected had to do with her comment on their potential similarities and he intended to figure out, but then they were interrupted.

Then she paused, her unnatural breath catching as she hears a familiar heartbeat somewhere in her ear. Right, so, speaking of full disclosure--

"Quite a show you've got here, Avenier. Though, escorting D'Grey?" That voice was full of mirth. "Pardon, Stef, but I don't see him unless you've swapped brothers?"

"Charming, Ansel."

Grinning wider in a different way he'd been before and stepped forward, shaking his oldest friend's hand, only to drop all pretenses with a laugh as they embraced. Darrell clapped Ansel's shoulder, "glad you made it!"

Stefanie's nose wrinkles and she speaks without looking around. It doesn't matter; he's leaning around her to laugh out in joy of greeting and take Darrell's hand, smirking as he pulls him into one of those brotherly-man-hug things.

Great. They knew each other too. She huffs out, and looks at the ceiling, praying for strength (and more mad than she should have been at the wolf scent masking the delicious man she'd been speaking to).

Darrell pulled back, now realizing the exchange between Stefanie and Ansel as he spoke while he straightened his sleeves, "It appears no introductions are necessary."

An explanation, however, that would be appreciated especially as he suddenly felt the tension in the altered atmosphere rise considerably.

"Nope," Stefanie spoke quickly, enunciating as Tony did the 'pah!' at the end of the word through a bright smirk. It narrowed the moment she swiveled her eyes to lay on Ansel. Smell aside, the man was still gorgeous. Irritating. But, she lets her smirk turn up as she realizes: he approached from behind, the view he'd had of her would do more to torture him than her sideways glance at his neck.

"We're acquainted."

"Stefanie's being modest." Ansel chuckles, "We've known each other...oh, we must be nearing on seven years?" He's gesturing between them on the 'we' like he knew how much it bothered her. Actually, she realized uncomfortably, he probably did. His hand went up to his ear, flicking at it enough for her to know it was bothering him not to hear her heartbeat.

Good. Prat.

"Seven in July," she said before she realized it. His heart rate seems to pick up noticeably as she does and his smirk softened at the edges as he just echoes her, 'Right.' Oivey. Stefanie took another quick gulp of her second martini, her eyes imploring the bartender for another one merci vous-plait.

"Though, if the interest is 'Full Disclosure'-"

"Ansel." Her snap was sweet, her smile all teeth as she leans back off the bar, hair sweeping off her shoulder again. Her lean in just made his smirk cruel again.

"Oui, darling?"

"It's a nice night. Don't ruin it, by being...you know, you."

As they kept talking, their quick and sharply pointed retorts more easily resembling a fencing match, Darrell realized how it was exactly these two were acquainted. He supposed he should have known from the moment Ansel stepped forward. Stefanie had introduced herself with no last name, and Ansel had spoken of a Stefanie he had met in a music festival without a last name also. Darrell was quickly realizing it was because no last name was necessary.

But even he couldn't help laughter as Stefanie told his friend not to 'ruin the night' by being himself. He didn't think Ansel took it as anything less than a compliment, actually.

Ansel just laughed, lifting his hand up as if in surrender and then taking Darrell's shoulder again, patting it once before he squeezed.

"Just looking out for my main man here, Steffie," he seems to taste the air at the way she scowls over his nickname well, he says 'scowl.' Stefanie more resembled a pouting kitten, but he meant that lovingly. Really. Ansel might be a dog, but he preferred cats to corpses. "You're looking at him like you're going to eat him."

"Cute," Stefanie said, in a way that left no doubt she meant to call him a bitch. Ansel just looked back at Darrell before he added, brightly, "And course I made it, mate. Looking good."

Darrell licked his lips again, now because his mouth drying as he was realizing yet another thing, if these two were in fact dueling, their words weapons, then Darrell had becoming the field of play. Chuckling, he shook his head once, the slightest of movements as he looked at Ansel, unsure whether he wanted to hug the man or punch him in the face.

"As always, man, as always," he accepted with a cocky smirk, "though a suit always helps."

Seriously, though? What were the odds of her finding someone Ansel knows well, actually Darrell approached her and he was the host, but still! Wrinkling her nose (to hide the fact that damn wolf smell), she cocks her head and muses aloud.

"You do look good in a suit."

How Ansel managed to restrain that eye roll, he didn't know, but he thought he should have a medal for it. Or he would, if he were inclined to needing gaudy metal to ascertain masculinity. That thought made him smirk.

"Merci, mademoiselle," accepting her compliment gracefully as opposed to his cocky and maybe somewhat arrogant retort to his own friend.

"I was just telling Stefanie why I'm such an upstanding guy. I'd ask you to vouch for me, but I have a feeling that'd be counterproductive."

Cocking an eyebrow at Darrell instead he nods with a laugh caught, "So should I disavow you instead? Because sorry mate--"

"Disavowed one already recently?" Stef cuts him off with a sweet smile. Ansel pauses, his hand looping around his wrist as he pulls back and says pointedly, "You did bribe me well."

Stefanie sighs and then lifts her glass again to toast him. She wasn't sure anymore if they were dissing each other or in agreement. Funny how often that seemed to happen with the two of them.

Darrell had more confidence with Ansel after all, but some of these vague-to-him comments about his friend were ringing very suspicious, as were the ones Ansel made of Stefanie. He clears his throat once, bringing the two out of their bickering briefly, but it was broken when she comments.

"In any case," she adds lightly, "I promise I won't eat you," she winks, "...unless you ask me too."

Ansel did roll his eyes that time. Darrell laughed once.

"Duly noted, cherie." Was it just him or did it sound like she was being literal?

"Great thing about being a host? I actually do have a valid reason to leave this conversation without being rude," he teased both of them, knowing just saying it like that could be constituted as rude but no more rude than they were being to each other. Darrell thought maybe it was best to let them finish dueling.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Stefanie," his easy smile returning, "I hope to see you soon. Ansel," he nodded at his friend, shaking his hand again. The explanation would have to be left for later on.

"Continue your bickering, but please try not to kill each other. I don't get the deposit back if the space is damaged," he joked with a wink as he started to walk away to mingle with others, before realizing his joke might have also been literal.


	42. Brackner Library

"Hard right, hardrighthard right! BOOM!" Nadia threw her hands up in the air as the tricked out yellow sports car blew up into fiery smithereens, thanks to her über prowess with a bazooka and simultaneous driving. In video games, of course. She stood up and did a little dance as she gloated to her currently loser of a boyfriend. Devin groaned into a bunched up fist as he threw the controller into the pillow next to him.

"You know, how am I supposed to train to be this bad-ass supernatural hunter of the things that go bump in the night if I can't even beat a virtual car?" Tony said the first thing you had to cut down was a vampire's speed advantage. If that was the case, forget supernatural, all they needed was nitron added to a used-car and he was toast. Grumbling, Devin's mollified slightly when his girlfriend next to him faux-empathizes.

"Aww," Nadia pouted, "better luck next time babe." She grinned and kissed him once before pushing his face away lest he distract her from the roll she was currently in. Or, okay, Devin was mollified by her lips, not the sympathy, but same difference right?

"Where's Al? He owes me a rematch. He and Hols better not be having a quickie-"

"Hey," Hols protested, eating pretzel chips and peanut butter as she came into the room. Then she shrugged, realizing that Nadia had a point. Devin would have offered the same thing as his first explanation too. After all, Lord knew that's what he would prefer to be doing with his girlfriend. No amount of exploding cars and bazookas were equaling their mutual frustration.

"Where is he?"

"Just because he's half canine doesn't mean I keep him on a leash, Nadia." Hols would never tire of dog jokes at Alcott's expense, Nadia knew, but took great offense when anyone else tried to make them. The double-standard irked at Devin -- or it would, if he really gave a damn what Hols thought most of the time. (Okay yes, yes he did, but shhh, she didn't have to know that).

"I'll go look for him then," Nadia said as she swatted Devin's hands away from her waist and handed the controller to Hols, who immediately hit the rematch button before Devin had a chance to prepare or protest. Jerking the controller back into his hands, there was a shout of 'oi, foul!' as Nadia left the room.

You could get lost in Brackner manor. It was huge, and about two times the size of their family home in Spain, and that was no modest beach house either. Her first guess was the library, er the main library (there were more than one she had learned), knowing Al might have gotten caught up with something he and Harper were working on.

The thought made her smile, and reminded her of a vision she had seen take place in the room adjacent this one, of the Brackner family reunited. Hols worried that Alcott's father and uncle may never get along again but Nadia knew better. Even if she hadn't seen it, she would have faith anyways.

It wasn't any of the Brackners she encountered, however, when she stepped into the library.

"Daniella? I didn't know you were here!" Nadia smiled as she walked into the room and hugged her friend. It forced Daniella to put down a half dozen books, but as they were the wrong ones anyways she tossed them without care. Her exuberance purely reserved for Nadia's entrance. Technically, she was better friends with her younger siblings, whom she'd always play with when they were younger and being babysat by their uncle Brandin. It was Nadia's older sister Annabelle who was friends with Daniella.

"Nadia!" When Daniella embraced her, she picked her up, pretending it was easier than it actually was now that they were almost of a height -- well, if you discount her heels. Those were tossed off somewhere in the book pile as well. Daniella would put them all back, she promised. Making a mess was easy for her, but at least Harper would have appreciated it if his work-study was any indication. Geniuses always have cluttered desks, Lyndsea had sworn to her with a giggle behind her hand before pointing her in here.

"I'm due out on a plane to Austria in --," Daniella checks her watch and groans playfully, "okay way too soon, I just wanted to get some reading for the plane. Noah busted my Kindle. Or it might have been Cole. I don't know, they each swear it was the other one."

A sudden burst of insight had Nadia certain it had been Noah, after the kindle had been very unceremoniously kicked off a bed by a pedicured foot. She almost said so aloud, but didn't feel like trying to explain to yet another person what the hell was going on in her mind. And Dani probably didn't want to hear that about her brother (heavens knew Nadia didn't want to see it; she really needed to find a way to control it).

She paused, her eyelashes fluttering up to the ceiling as she was still holding on to Nadia's wrists even after putting her down. "Which, probably means it was Lila, but anyway, Al said I should feel free to take whatever I needed."

Having been distracted with wondering (she didn't have to guess hard; she knew as soon as she gave it more than a passing thought) why Dani was going to Austria, Nadia's eyebrows furrow as something seemed to jam some metaphorical gears in her head. Why there was something off about that sentence Dani just said, Nadia didn't really know.

Technically, he had. Technically, Alcott had said that about six years ago when he was ten years old, but in the interim years even Mrs. Brackner had said she was glad that someone was using the library. Daniella always wondered how much of it she'd read herself; there were volumes upon volumes of encyclopedic references and bound magazines dating back to 1850s -- and scores of series, classics, and primary source journals that were likely antiques on top of that. The Brackner Library grew with every generation, Alcott liked to boast, "almost as much as their alcohol stores did."

"What're you doing here?" Daniella waved off the thought of her poor, broken Kindle. Considering her companion on this trip (or more precisely, she was the companion to her grieving friend) was likely to spend the entire plane ride trying not to look at her neck, Daniella wasn't entirely sure how much reading she'd get done anyway. Anything in that library that could help her control a newborn vamp though, was all for the good. Harper might have Stefanie walking in the sunlight, but Daniella already had one person itching to get into her veins. She did not need two, all right?

"Oh, me, Devin, and Hols came over for junk food and video games," she pointed out of the room with her thumb over her shoulder before admitting, "it's kind of a belated unofficial celebration, though Irene wants to have a real one later on. "Soon as I can have 'Welcome Home From The Dead' banners made especially", she says."

Nadia was still adjusting to life back home, as she was sure Harper and Eliza were too. Now the biggest problems that seemed to be piling up (apart from she and her boyfriend's self-inflicted celibacy) were whether or not Heather would call Julian back, or how Blake's boxing match was going to go, or if Aaron got that internship at the Pharm offices. Her half-brothers going on about their days as normal helped a little with the routine, whereas Chace was just about to be signed pro with a bunch of sponsors. The thought of seeing even less of her twin did not comfort her. 

"If I'm airborne at that time, please tell Irene I'm so down for a "real" celebration soon," Daniella added with a twist to her smirk as she went back to the book shelf, drumming her fingernails along a rainbow of dusty rims. The trouble with that idea was it insinuated they were done, Daniella thought with a bit to her bottom lip. No, they weren't done. Things were just getting started. Her fingernail - painted gold-amber - tugged down on the diamond earring in her ear. Olivier's taste was unfairly fashionable.

"Will do," Nadia nodded with a smile, unsurprised Irene had made friends with Daniella already. Irene didn't so much as make acquaintances as she did...recruit people into her friend army. She boasted an extensive contacts list, more than half of which she actually kept in touch with regularly! Most of the numbers in Nadia's mobile were rather useless.

"So what's been going on?"

Nadia took a seat after long and winded exhale, watching Dani fiddle with books. It was a curious section to be in if you wanted some light reading on a plane.

"Guess you haven't heard then, miraculously," Nadia sighed, "Tony's been pestering Devin and me about it every chance he gets."

Daniella paused, her finger tapping on the end of the book as she looks back over her shoulder to Nadia. Maybe she...was a little embarrassed now to admit, "I uh, haven't seen him last couple days." Lord it might even have been Christmas, damn, she was missing her friend even if that wasn't that long (three days felt like a lifetime in these recent weeks) and he obviously texted. She was trying not to overwhelm the house and it was was like getting a new chihuahua.  Stefanie demanded full attention. A life-size, grown-up, short skirted, fanged blood-drinking chihuahua. Don't forget the adorable, deadly pout.

Thinking about that made her remember the last memorial service she technically went to had been Tony's for Stefanie herself. Swallowing to keep the sadness at bay, Daniella shrugged as she added in a bit of a tease, "Well that and we've been in a texting trivia war, I'm up two points at the moment so he's been looking for a super hard question to ask me I'm sure." It was a simple strategy to keep him distracted from his anger and loathing and sadness. Daniella knew it didn't really help anymore than Ser Madame Cuddles did -- but she bet he appreciated the effort just the same.

"I'm shocked though. Tony is a _total_ gossip queen. What did I miss here?"

"He could give Sienna a run for her money," Nadia nodded, only to pause and then shook her head to relent the fact that no, no, he probably couldn't. Sienna was on a scary level. Daniella laughed under her breath; she hadn't seen Sienna since the girl was twelve but...even then, she'd been whispering to her she thought Alcott's mother and uncle were 'having the sex', as she'd put it then.

"Well, only the fact that thanks to some ancient yei hunter's rune, I, the one who marked Devin into unlocking his superpowers, am now the one destined to have his genetically superior hunter babies. No amount of protection, standard or otherwise, stops those little guys from swimming up to the Fallopian tubes. So, unless we want to risk being 16 and Pregnant, vaginal intercourse is a no-go." Nadia propped her chin on her hands, with elbows propped on her knees, sighing suffer-ably.

"We can't seem to catch a break! Even if...okay, this problem rates a 2 on the Richter scale compared to everyone else," Nadia still pouted. She was too upset to even be embarrassed about how openly she had talked about this! If that wasn't an indication, Nadia didn't know what was.

Daniella's eyes had widened and were just getting wider and wider now, so that by the time she's pulling another curious title off the shelf with Greek symbols alone marking the binding and turning back to Nadia her eyes are round as those fancy tea-cups Mrs. Brackner had out on the dining table.

"Oh that isn't a 2," Daniella said first, the corner of her lips twitched. "Trust me babe, if there is one thing I'm sure of it's that if any one of this crew couldn't have sex it would dwarf literally everything else. It's their silver lining." Hers too, sometimes Daniella thought as she hugged the book to her chest. "And if there's only thing they want less than being sex-less, it's kids."

It was only half a joke, but she covered it well. Sixteen had been the year she lost it too. Tilting her head as she thought it through, she said slowly, "But how does that even...I mean so he...melts through the latex I guess? Makes it rip? Damn girl. But...only with you?"

Nadia nodded, feeling a better to hear that if anyone else had this problem it would be crippling. Only a little better though, especially given the fact that Dani had just hit the nail on the head of why it totally sucked. It was only with her.

"Yeah it just shoots right through the latex, apparently."

Oh man, that was not fair. Especially since Daniella couldn't help but think...if the two of them were free to have sex with anyone else without the potential of kids...they were sixteen! And now they had to be abstinent or else start buying pacifiers? Yuck.

"How in the hell did yei hunters come up with that one, anyway?" Super sperm, oh man, Dani tried to stifle a giggle and made a mental note never to mention to Tony her immediate thought of the cape-wearing tadpoles she imagined. He'd draw them onto a t-shirt for Devin with that t-shirt making machine he got from his brother for Christmas.

Nadia threw her hands up in the air and then slapped them back on her thighs, "No idea! Claude, Eliza's dad," Nadia wasn't clear on who Dani knew, but maybe she should assume it would be everyone, "tried to explain a little, but actually the most help we've gotten has been from Audrey Powell. She used to go to school with us, but she dropped out of school last year before graduation. Some of the stuff she can do..." Nadia paused and pressed her lips together. It wasn't anything substantial, nothing that amounted to more than a feeling, and nothing no one else would take seriously (despite the fact that when had she been wrong yet?).

"It's like nothing I've ever seen before. And sometimes when I'm in the same room with her, the air gets thicker? Like, I'm breathing something else in." Needless to say, she wasn't exactly too thrilled with Audrey's help. It wasn't a secret she used damoyei magic, and that wasn't such a big pill for Devin to swallow given that he had always been curious about damoyei spells and potions, but it was something completely different to her.

And no, it wasn't jealousy.

"Breathing something else in?" Daniella asked, sounding a bit strained as she thinks she can hear her own heart beating quicker at the thought. The room was certainly tightening with her curiosity; Audrey Powell…why did that name sound familiar? If Olivier had said it, she'd have remembered crystally though so…it was something else. Damoyei spells, though, and the woman was eager to help…

Stiffening suddenly, Nadia felt similar to what she had just explained right now. Nadia considered she had psyched herself into perceiving something that wasn't there. Looking up, her eyes automatically locked on the spot where Dani's fingers connected with the spine of a book. It didn't feel to the same degree as it did with Audrey, but it was too similar to ignore.

"Like destruction," she ended with a small frown.

Daniella's spine straightened as Nadia looked at her book again, suspicion now in her eyes and the corner of her mouth cracks again. Nodding slowly, Daniella lowered the book, twisting it around to show her the title -- not that she expected Nadia could read Greek. Luckily, inside was in English even if the charts and runes were not.

"Destruction," Daniella said, her finger tapping the edge of the title. "That's often how it…looks. We're talking Damoyei, oui? That's simplification, though. See the snake here?" She taps on it again below the title, then smiles, going to sit next to Nadia on the floor and open the book. Nadia scooted closer, her eyes now narrowing with a shameless curiosity, so she could see better.

"The serpent is often a symbol of destruction in spells as I'm sure you know, especially since Christian theology spreads it as strictly representative of sin, temptation…Eve and the apple, you know." Daniella wrinkled her nose up, tossing black hair over her shoulder as she restrains from rolling her eyes, but only barely, and only because it wasn't Nadia who deserved the scorn. No, though Daniella could think of a few others who did deserve it.

"But here the serpent is actually wrapped around the Bowl of Hygeia. She was, in Greek theology anyway, the assistant or partner of Asklapeios…his rod with the snake is the symbol we see on hospitals today? It's medicine. The rod for the male, the cup or chalice for the female.And the snake represents wisdom. I'm not surprised Audrey's helping you. Whatever people believe of Hecate, Diana, Gaia, Selene…or their followers? Usually they're more motivated to help others whatever their false image."

Nadia nodded slowly, not knowing much about the Greek symbols and their meanings before hand, as the class on runes offered in school focused almost entirely on Anglo-Saxon, for obvious reasons. Daniella smiled and put it down, twisting strands of hair back through her fingers as she looks up from the symbols and looks back at Nadia.

"I am sorry about the sex, though. Want me to see if I can find anything on my family journals too?"

Nadia smiled and now feeling a little abashed, nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "That'd be great, thanks. I've gone a couple of times to Brandin's home, but I'm running out of viable excuses to keep looking in the Faye library."

Daniella feigns shock as she said, "What, and you don't want to tell my uncle you need his help to have teenage underage sex?"

Half way through the sentence she nearly breaks out laughing, Nadia giggling as well. Brandin Faye was a man who prides himself on his propriety...or the appearance of it, anyways. He was the keeper of the Faye artifacts, the (known) ones not deemed too dangerous and thus confiscated by the pharm -- or too valuable to the state and therefore on a museum display somewhere. Daniella still didn't think it was fair. There was an amethyst-diamond-ruby encrusted tiara in a glass display that had belonged to her great great great grandmother...the one who had been a queen.

Still, at least Brandin kept the books.

Devin, she knew, was searching the Stuart's library and since that's the farthest thing from an anomaly, hasn't been questioned too much about it. Nadia doubted however that Brandin would believe she had suddenly taken an interest to Ancient Persian magical practices.

"Daniella," Nadia began again as she looked at the section of the library, "...what are you looking for?"

For an instant, there's a clench in Daniella's throat and an odd tickle at her spine she'd learned too long ago never to ignore. It pricks at the little hairs, those hallmark signs of the foreboding in all great literature that whisper 'danger' in your ear like a lover's sweet caress. Her eyelashes flutter at Nadia as she clenched the book tighter, then looked at the page instead. An amber nail traces the edge of the runic drawing before she takes the edge of the page and flicks it over. The question was ringing in her ear.

"I'm dating," and that was an utterly new term to Daniella, "a hybrid. His mother was a witch, his father a vampire, and all the lore I know says that shouldn't be possible. Remington D'Grey," her tongue curdles around the name as her eyes darken as if the page did her some great ill, "should never have been able to have children. Vampires procreating..."

Daniella shudders, her tongue clucking at the thought.

Nadia knew it was supposedly impossible. The plain evidence it wasn't of course, were named Olivier and Antonio D'Grey. By some force of magic, damoyei she guessed, although one could argue that if the magic had given life instead of taken it away it must have been good, they lived: half vampire, half human. Nadia had once watched the movie Blade with her siblings. Her brothers mostly fawned over the blood and gore, and how kick ass Wesley Snipes as Blade had been. Annabelle found the whole thing grotesque. Hols had thought Blade was pretty hot, 'must have something to do with all the evil creature he kills while riding a motorcycle' Chace had guessed. Nadia, on the other hand, simply wondered how a half human, half vampire could hate part of what he was so much, that he hunted it down.

Guess, Nadia had picked up on Daniella's wavelength.

"It was the witches who cursed vampires to begin with in some of the legends, you know? And as horrific an abomination the act of a vampire procreating -is-...as much of an affront as it is..." Her face, which had been so screwed up in anger softens perceptively, voice tender around it. "Olivier isn't. Tony isn't. Hybrid's are no more or less inherently evil...only," and now her voice was heavy again, only now it was with sadness she didn't know how to express. Her eyes flick back up to Nadia as she said, "only neither one of them believe it. Tony thinks he's a monster, Olivier doesn't think he has a soul. So...I suppose you could say," she turns another page in the book and looked to it, voice delicate as she finished, "I'm looking to prove them wrong."

Maybe she just wanted to be right, thought, Daniella thought. Maybe she was trying to assuage her conscience of dating someone her siblings call simply "her mafia boyfriend." Clearing her throat and tossing her hair back, she added lighter that before.

"That, and to understand them? There's never been successful hybrids before that I know of...but maybe I just haven't found the right book yet. And their need for blood alone...I, need to understand, because it's..." She smiles as mildly as she can, "Well, I've never been particularly squeamish Nadia but, only when I'm in control of the situation. And the only way I can be in control is through knowledge."

And then...well, she'd cross that bridge when she thought of it.

Nadia nodded, understanding her explanation, as she scratched behind her ear. Nadia understood wanting control; Nadia also understood that there were some things you just couldn't control as much as you wanted to. It was all a state of mind in her opinion. Continuing scratching, Nadia began to get irritated until she realized that the itch she felt wasn't physical at all. Then she lowered her hand, lips parted slightly, eyes focused somewhere far away,

"Oh, and a book on the care and feeding of vampiresses for five hour flights to Austria. Any ideas? Google failed me."

Nadia seemed to ignorance the last question, whether rhetorical or not, and then turned her head sideways to look at Daniella head on.

"If you care about them, why will you betray them?"

Daniella appeared taken aback -- her eyes flutter, her eyebrows pop, her mouth tugs down as if she stopped it barely from dropping open -- and yet, for someone accused of conspiring against her boyfriend and brother she recovered remarkably quickly. One of the spells she was looking for weighed down on her mind. Surveying Nadia's calm deliverance, a similar calm strikes her as she sits taller. Slowly, very slowly, she starts to nod.

"If you have something to say to me, I suggest you just say it," Daniella said, quiet. Affront at the suggestion -- especially the fact she said it was 'will betray', like it was inevitable, like there was nothing she could do -- felt like a depressing sort of lie. She might not know what Nadia was talking about specifically, but...she knew what Nadia was talking about all the same. 

' Because I care' , she might have said, and ' why is it assumed I'll betray them when they might betray me first? ' Both thoughts rocket across her mind, split-second in their heat, indignation, hurt. Then she bites on her lip, cleaning it of the paint she hadn't gotten rid of when her coffee burned her mouth before, chewing and closing the book on her lip. She didn't move away. She didn't blink. Her eyes were wide and dark, a look of foreboding that made one think of deep oceans, Arctic ice, mounds of snow and then suddenly remember that was also where Santa was supposed to work.

"That's the thing about betrayal, Nadia," Daniella said, still. "It never comes from your enemies...only the people you love."

 


	43. Numbered Lectures

Eyes still on the long blond hair as Stefanie walked off, Rebecca blew a strand from her own eyes. Her coffee twirls smoke in the air as she huffs. With an exhale so hot she's surprised her breath doesn't twirl either, she decides. Yup. It was happening. One sip downs nearly the entire carton, scalding a throat too hot to notice. Rim shot off the rubbish bin. Two steps out the door.  
  
She makes it to the park before realizing she doesn't know where she was going to go.   
  
Of course she doesn't. Marcus didn't make appointments. Like one of those bad arcade games, he pops up when least necessary and most aggravating. Rebecca might be a champ at Whack-a-Vamp, but Google maps was not her cup of tea. Couldn't they play Vampire Invaders instead? She'd like shooting him.   
  
(No she wouldn't.)  
  
(Well, yes she would, but she'd feel bad later about it, kind of.)  
  
Huffing and sitting on the park bench, Rebecca drags her hands through snow-covered tendrils of hair. This was ridiculous. Days like this she wondered what the point of her gift even was if she couldn't get one little location. Oh, sure, uncover a deeply buried personal secret unspoken of for centuries? No problem! You want a nearest zipcode? Sorry, 404 error on Rebecca Net.   
  
Fuck, was she seriously going to have to call him? He used an unlisted number, but it was stored in her phone, she could retrieve it to dial back. Calling him would probably subtract points from her status as a Mystery.  She was supposed to be mystical and impossible to solve. You know, or else, when she yells at him, he'd snap her neck. (That was him being kind though, so maybe not. Draining her dry would be a lot more painfully slow and fulfilling literally for him.)  
  
Two minutes of chewed-up lip scowling pass as she tries to focus. Phone in hand, she's halfway down her call log (shh, she didn't star it Favorite or anything), when she realizes she knew what to do. Aha! Oh, right, duh. Pulling up maps instead, she shuts her eyes, remembering the clear shots she had when she touched Stefanie's hand of where she'd turned. Nodding to herself once, she searches for the top expensive hotels in Paris, cross-referencing it with proximity to hospitals (with blood banks),  the Siene (body disposal and what not),  any and all locals that have the Pharmakeian "P" logo,  (the app was saving peoples lives). A half dozen pop up. Google searches for high-crime areas tells her quickly there was no need to try: Tony's brother has all weird crimes on lockdown with papers. She does run across a blog with the words "vampire" and "werewolf" and "underground war" with crime lab reports, but Ms. Avenier didn't give her map locations of them.  Rebecca assumes that's for personal safety.   
  
Six hotels was still too many to check, she grumbles under her breath when she starts zooming in to street view to look at them. One boasted of glass everywhere; that would be bad for vampires, she figures, sunlight potion or not. The next was downtown tourist central. Probably good for vampires who know tourists going missing is easier to cover. She stars that as possible. This one has a bar in it, promising, but her cocktail app tells her they don't serve Tasliker.  Nope. Next.  
  
...Oh.   
  
Rolling her eyes, now with a clear destination, she saves the search as "Marcus Locator" (she'd ask Rowland for a clever name later and pay no attention to how easy it was for her to think like him) -- then shoots her husband a brief text. "Slight hitch in Paris; had a vision, taking care of it. No need to worry. Start dinner without me, be home in a few hours. Alec can have the bag of chips we hid if he finished his hwk. Kisses, R."   
  
She wasn't leaving out too many details, right? Nooo, course not.  
  
Rebecca told Rowland everything, that was true, but she knew since the tweet if she told him point blank she was going to confront Marcus there was every chance the cavalry would descend. Jude was not stable when it came to Marcus, and...she can't exactly blame him. Hence her use of the word 'hitch'; Rowland would know the vision was about Marcus, but if Jude read her phone, he wouldn't see red. If she'd said Marcus' name, they were to come running, any of them.   
  
(Blair said she'd text 'Noblecide' and wouldn't let anyone tell her differently.)  
  
Slipping her phone in her pocket to start walking again, she grabs a taxi. Within twenty minutes of Solitaire on her phone, she's sitting in a hotel bar, heels up and locked around each other. One hand bats down her scarlet blouse (festive! for Christmas!), then resumes placing the red eight on the black nine. The other swirls her wine, red as her shirt, and when she feels a shiver go up her spine, she tilts her head and speaks without looking up from the green felt.  
  
" _Claudia's?_ Really, Marcus?" Now she looks up, smirking in the same hateful way he does as she offers, voice a lilt, "Well, I suppose the least you could do was have a bar named in her honor."   
  
"If I were capable of feeling frightened, Rebecca, this would be the moment I would begin to," he took a seat at the bar stool next to her, looking forward and asking for a glass of his preferred. Marcus turned in the seat to face her better despite the fact that she hadn't looked up from her mobile game and glass of wine.

"We both know that's not quite true though, is it?"   
  
He'd been afraid when he met her all those years ago and she said Natalie's name. Damn, her life would be easier if she could get that back. The corner of her lips quirk up as Tasliker appears on the barstool. Tipping the glass as if to toast his with the fact she was right (as if she wasn't smug enough when he appeared), she turns on the stool to lean over her game again. Two goes on the three uncovering...hm, damn, not the ace she'd been hoping for.  
  
"As it is, I'll settled for being further impressed, merci," he added in French as the bartender placed the glass in front of him. Rebecca had an annoying habit of being only two steps behind him, at times even only one step, but that was still far better than the dozen that was the norm for everybody else.  
  
Marcus took a simple sip and when he was content, asked aloud, "Enjoying Paris?"  
  
Endeavoring to keep her heartbeat steady as he sits beside her by taking a sip, she doesn't speak or look up again until he asks. Tempting to begin reaming him immediately, the truth was she needs to perfect what she wants to say.  
  
"I was." She agrees easily enough. Her arms fold over the stool and she eyes him sideways, gaze trailing up the strength in his jaw as she looks for any and all signs of the "impressed" state he's supposed to be in. "Then I was joined by unwelcome company." Leaning over the edge of the bar, she cocks an eyebrow at him as she asks sardonically, "Any guess who?"   
  
She means Stefanie, and no it wasn't a compliment that she wasn't referring to him.   
  
"Then I suppose you're lacking your usual luster, huh, Rebecca?" He grinned at her, shrugging a shoulder and didn't even try to pretend to hide how bothered he was by her company. After all, it made her feel special to know she affected him as such so why not indulge her petty little need? It certainly didn't harm Marcus in the slightest.  
  
"Oh, now I know you don't mean me," he tsk-ed after another sip, setting the glass on the counter, "when my company is so enjoyable. And after all, let's not pretend this a remarkable happenstance. You've sought me out, I'm quite flattered actually. So do tell how I managed to ruin your day from all the way over here. Perhaps it'll make my day."  
  
So enjoyable. Must be one of Alec's opposite days. About to mutter that, Rebecca drowned the childish comment in her drink. One slight downside of spending so much time with pre-teens was the suffering of wit (dramatically offset by all the rewards, sure, but nice to know she still has some tact).  
  
Some, anyway. After all, she did track him down, as he said.  
  
"A coincidence?" She intones with incredulity, "I already told you I don't believe they exist. Why downplay either of our hands when we both know the other isn't bluffing?"   
  
Rebecca hasn't noticed she's leaning forward (and certainly it was only for dramatic effect that she does). Her finger taps her glass. Eyes narrow.   
  
"I met your progeny," she answers for him, even though he didn't ask. The triviality of bickering that she wouldn't be 'commanded' by his 'Do tell' would bore them both something quick and fierce. Brightly, she asks with another sharp rap on her fake crystal, "Tell me Marcus, what part of 'Don't kill the locals' was so hard to comprehend?"   
  
Ah, she meant Stefanie then. Suddenly smiling brighter and less sarcastically, though not wholeheartedly, Marcus grabs the glass again and drinks with a smirk as she reminds him of their little accord. Well, it wasn't theirs as much as hers, given that he had done no bargaining and merely chosen to respect it.  
  
"You know, your little 'warning' did cross my mind that night, but I am pleased to say, Rebecca, I did nothing of the sort. And technically, she's Austrian though yes, she does live in the city, currently with a mutual friend of ours." Marcus licked his bottom lip and looked up from his glass with a smile.  
  
"How is Antonio?"  
  
Little warning? Rebecca doesn't blink, irritated as she is by the belittling. One of the good things about his knowing he can't lie to her has meant she doesn't tend to need to check his words for accuracy. They skip that triviality too. Except when he says he didn't kill Stefanie, she sighs aloud, knowing very well and not wanting the reminder.   
  
Blinking once as he asks after Tony, she exhales with her shiver and goes back for her drink, taking a liberal sip of it before deigning to respond.  
  
"I'm sure he's somewhere taking issue with your calling him a friend, but that aside," she sets the glass down, "fine, far as I know." A flicker from the nearby candles (Claudia's was a classy bar) reflects in her eye. Oh ho, far as she knew? But what does Rebecca know? Not everything, to be sure, but she has that potential and the ability to know anything far outweighs the burden of knowing all.   
  
"And oh, Marcus, must we go step by step through the technicality game? Yes, I know, Stefanie poisoned herself. Only she wouldn't have done so if you didn't give her, your blood, knowing as you did she'd come to regret it."   
  
"Undoubtedly," he answered easily, not missing a beat and smiling along as she continued to gloss over the simple question and returned back to the person she really wanted to discuss: Stefanie. At least, that's what she was telling herself, who they were really discussing was him and his recent choices.  
  
"Of course I knew," he nodded and then tilted his head curiously before chuckling, "and what would you have done differently in my situation, Rebecca? Told her so, refused to turn her? I must admit, I'm curious to know if you believe your prowess that strong or simply her determination that weak and I can assure, the latter isn't it." He said this with a trace amount of pride, actually.  
  
"It was the best possible outcome, Rebecca."  
  
"My prowess persuaded you."    
  
Smirk lifting, she toasts him again with the tip of her glass and an imaginary hat before she takes a deep breath and sits further back in the chair, eyes flicking up and forward over him to regard the rest of the room.   
  
The flames, the jazz piano, the gentle hark back to a previous age...gee, she's surprised he has a fondness for the place. Not admitting she likes the decor (couldn't he camp out in dark mansions with fake blood running down the walls? it would be nice and easy to disparage that), she grits her back teeth.  
  
"The fact she might have gone and found another vampire doesn't let you off the hook." She speaks without looking at him, "A, because you don't control the rest of the world and are thus, not responsible for them and B, because you turned her, because you wanted to. "  
  
Ah, touché. He inclined his head to show she had a point and lifted his glass as well, taking a sip of his drink before swirling it around absently in his cup.  
  
"I wouldn't have turned her if I didn't, you are correct, but neither would I have sought her out. I made the most of the moment and here it is Rebecca: she was determined to become a vampire, she was also in an establishment where she could have taken two steps out the door and found someone else who was willing. Alternately, two steps through the wrong door and she would have found someone who would have pretended to agree and instead have drained her dry.  
  
I'm not pretending that I agreed to it because I had her best interest in mind, but it did run right with my own interest. Creating another vampire isn't an idle thing, Rebecca, don't be fooled by modern fiction." He tapped his fingers against the glass as he recalled the events of the night and then spoke up once more.  
  
"In all your omniscience, Rebecca, did you happen to learn why she came to me to begin with?"  
  
All she hears by the circling around was 'I'm not saying anything against or for it ahem, I'm so clever', which was doing nothing but make her more aggravated all along. Ha, as if this unusual for dealing with Marcus.   
  
Strange, considering her prominent low-cut blouse was meant to attract as much attention as possible, and she was in the middle of this bar to ensure witnesses. Yet right now, she thinks she's the one who wished there was no audience. It likely has something to do with wanting to strangle him.   
  
Exhaling, she nods, ignoring the fact that it was because Stefanie had told her.   
  
"Her little brother died." Rebecca reports calmly, another shiver slipping down her spine. Her teeth dig into her tongue. "I'm aware. So you, let her become the architect of all her future unhappiness as she outlives each and every person she loves."  
  
Her finger swirls around the wine glass and then points at him, "Just like, you."  
  
Then she feigns a gasp behind her fingers as the scratch the edge of her lipstick, "Oh! Are we at the point of the evening where I tell you how you really feel already and give you a lecture? Sigh, I do seem to leap there frequently. How self-righteous of me. I should number the lectures. That way I just need to text you a number when you inevitably disappoint us both."  
  
She finishes the wine, signaling for another and offering a sweet "merci," when given it.  
  
"I didn't have to become a vampire to outlive every person I loved," he reminded her after a few extended moments in silence. Marcus moved forward, leaning his elbows on the bar and then chuckled briefly, "and I wasn't given a choice of becoming a vampire, but that's just one of those technicalities you'd prefer we didn't dwell on, so let's move on."  
  
Though the thought of Rebecca labeling her speeches and lectures was amusing, what was more amusing was the thought of disappointing her. That was borderline laughable, about as laughable as him disappointing himself. Instead, he inclined his head and gestured to her with a smirk.  
  
"It's impossible to disappoint without expectations so I'd suggest ridding yourself of them."  
  
"Neither did she." Rebecca says, certain and shooting her words as one might an arrow. She has a habit of that when it came to him, she thinks with an exhale as she adds softly, "I'm merely commenting on the fact you haven't told me yet she wouldn't regret it. Which suggests you do have expectations after all, you know," she looks at him over the glass. Her ankles wrap around each other on the stool. They cling as she finds herself leaning over one shoulder, her other hand rubbing her wedding ring. Comfort chases away the shivering his vampire-y presence naturally brings up, but then she seems to naturally fight that herself too.  
  
"You knew she'd regret it. Why?"  
  
"Then perhaps it is not so difficult to understand why I turned her then," he inclined his head after thinking that it wasn't entirely the reason, of course, but it was part of it and therefore it couldn't be ignored. Besides, even if he did try to ignore or hide it, Rebecca could spot it instantly and then lord it over him with her version of gloating (she wasn't very good at it).  
  
"I knew she would regret it," he began very simply after finishing his drink, "because decisions made in grief are usually that way. Because despite the fact that she was mourning her brother, she still had a lot of people on her mind, people she cares about and wants to protect. and like you said, she has to watch them all die like she watched her brother die." It was both tragic and ironic, given that it was what she was ultimately trying to avoid, well, a significant part of it.  
  
"And because we all do," he added with a raise of his eyebrows, "at one point. Some of us move on, some don't. Most will never admit to it, but seeing as I don't have the luxury of privacy around you." He didn't finish the thought only gave the bartender the room number of which to charge the drink to.  
  
"A luxury I don't have either, as you like to remind me."  
  
And yet he still admitted it aloud. Rebecca smirks underneath her new glass as she takes another small sip. It was easier for him not to have privacy when he freely admits things to her. She likes that; it was easier to appear omniscient when they just give her the answers. Seers best trick.  
  
Setting the glass down once more, she knows her heart had skipped with her irritation. Her finger scratches the edge of her ear.  
  
It was easier, she realizes, when she asks questions, if he felt like talking. (God, she was his glorified therapist).  
  
"And you think you've moved on?"  
  
"An even playing field makes for a better game." Then he paused, lifting a finger to mimic her fake surprise from before and then tilts his head, his exp ression blatantly condescending, his smirk only helping to showcase it.  
  
"Oh except I forget, you're not playing games, you're not playing anything. It seems you're just here to berate me and keep me company," he sat back down, settling into his chair more comfortably but not ordering a second drink. Marcus never did, it was more a matter of habit more than anything. Only particularly challenging situations caused him to reach for an extra drink, and he wouldn't flatter Rebecca by letting her think this was one of them.  
  
"I convinced myself of it a century and a half ago," his eyebrows rose. There was no need to say, of course, what had happened to change that.  
  
"And then it took some time but I worked through it again. Changed man," he added sarcastically with a smirk before asking, "but whether I have or not doesn't really matter given that you work specifically to undermine any progress I've ever done on the matter with your previous promise. Or was such a thing only empty to allow you more time to have me 'behaving' and to figure out my potentially malicious evil intentions?  
  
Rebecca Stone, using manipulation and false promises in an attempt to gain the upper hand? I think I would openly weep in happiness, I'd be so proud."  
  
Berate yes, keep company no, she wants to say. Except there he was making himself comfortable, apparently supremely unaffected as ever. What it was making him talk (was it his previous statement on being "impressed"?), she can't tell. Intimacy and omniscience do little to overcome the fact they were fundamentally different people.  
  
Rebecca utters a soft exhale, wondering why it was he seemed to breathe. And that room number he gave--that couldn't possibly be real, right?  
  
Her eyes flutter to the floor with his silent reminder. Yes, and then she'd opened Pandora's box and made him face his worst memories. Hold up, no, she wasn't guilty. Her eyes flash back up, back teeth gritting, but she offers pleasantly enough, "When you kidnapped and tormented a dragon, fed off a woman you seduced to impersonate me while she killed my friends, and just for kicks had two knights go after every person they loved."   
  
Her eyebrow etches into the middle of her forehead.   
  
"If I had even a small smidgen of a part in changing that man, well," she lifts her wine glass high and downs another long sip. Only to set it down, gasp out and mutter while sucking on her lip gloss, "mm," her finger waves at him, "and none of that crap about how I made you worse. After all. It was no light thing to turn Stefanie? Then why exactly would any old vampire do so?" she taps the glass, ignoring the fact she needs to believe she hasn't made him worse a monster as he claimed.  
  
"And why would you take her on? Shared grief?" Her lip pops out. "Mm no. And no, Marcus." She taps the table again, now realizing she needs to slow down her drink before she wound up in that room of his as his own personal nightcap.  
  
"Glad as I once might have been to see you weep, save your tears. I've been straight with you. Just...withheld some things." Like, you know, the fact she was a time traveling Seer who never was a lady capable of knowing his forbidden past.    
  
Her eyebrow arches.   
  
"I didn't contact you," she adds softly, "because I was being kind in giving you space. So you are right in one way, I suppose: I've stopped being kind. That worth a tear?"  
  
"It wasn't for kicks, it was a social experiment, but yes I suppose the rest is accurate. It'd have to be given that you are fond of reminding me of it, or is it reminding yourself of it?" His eyebrows raised as he looked at her questioning and then smirked briefly. Wasn't that some food for thought? Well, perhaps a little snack instead.  
  
Tilting his head after chuckle when she continued her little alcohol induced ramble, he proposed, "Maybe I was feeling lonely. I thought to myself, well, I had always wanted daughters once upon a time. It's true, she ran away from home but she keeps in touch, you wouldn' t expect that from kids these days." He smirked again, only a little amused at his own extended joke. After all, she wasn't going to laugh, so he'd indulge himself.   
  
"Indubitably," he told her, "from a better man. I can offer a small 'brava' instead. Maybe a soft clap. Because," and he quotes, "if I had even a small smidgen of a part in changing that woman, well." He inclines his head given that he was devoid of a glass to raise up to her.  
  
"It's not a reminder," Rebecca argues instinctively, pushing the glass away from herself and sitting up straighter. Heartbeat rising as she listens, she forces herself to do so only because of what she's about to say. After all, she's no hypocrite.   
  
"It's a vain, and foolish hope that you might hear what you've done differently one of these days - truly listen, stop smirking as if these were things that were Boy Scout badges- and oh, I don't know, express some *remorse.*"   
  
Her voice spiked on the word and she slaps at the edge of the counter. And yes, maybe a reminder for herself, because the universe loves showing her all the things it did to Marcus first. Shh, she didn't ask for that.   
  
Her hand lifts instinctively at his extended (albeit accurate) joke and she has to force it back into her lap to keep from hurting herself by slapping him. Nails dig into her own wrists from holding herself back so hard, she's a bit worried she'll draw blood. No, Marcus was not a newborn incapable of holding himself back -- in fact, his control on his bloodlust was extraordinary, but she still doesn't think it's a great idea to spill blood in front of a vampire. Call her crazy.  
  
(She probably is.)  
  
"Oh, you did change me, Marcus." Usually plump lips press thin as she batters down breath and keeps her hands down. "I never knew how to loathe someone until I met you. And I never knew how completely self-destructive I am in the face of it. You're right, I am reminding myself. I'm reminding myself because when you go and tell me you always wanted daughters I feel this unbelievable weight in my chest and I want to turn you into this poor unfortunate soul just so I don't have to -hate- you so much that I want to commit murder. Something you're very familiar with." Her eyebrows unfurrow on her forehead and she shakes her head at him a fraction of an inch.  
  
"I know Stefanie killed herself. I'm not saying you might have saved her. But you didn't even try."  
  
"You're right, that is very foolish but who knows, give it another century," he chuckles again, surprised Rebecca could harbor that naive hope. Didn't sh e claim to know him above everybody else still left on this earth? There was no room for remorse in his life. Well, his death, but again just one of thos e technicalities she'd hoped to avoid.  
  
The only thing that was making this bearable was knowing, hearing actually, that he was angering her the same as she was bothering him. Good, it was the least she could suffer.  
  
"It's only fair," he commented idly, waving his hand and trying not to laugh at the mere insinuation. As if anything were truly fair. Fair's a concept for schoolyard children trying to dictate who won the hopscotch game. Did they still play that. He almost asked Rebecca to ask Blair but then she -would- have attempted murder and this was a respectable establishment.  
  
"I don't fight losing battles, Rebecca."  
  
"You don't fight at all."   
  
Rebecca's voice was sharp, blunt and unrefined. The harshness hurts her throat as sure as the wine stains her smirk, like some kind of violet mockery of his appetites. Yet she's glad of it. She's glad, as she slips off the barstool. Enough of sitting there in plain view of all these classy people who have already eyed her wedding ring and cast eyes of priests and judges back at her. She's glad she can shock them with her apparent infidelity. Maybe it was her talk about dragons, murder, and bitchy impersonators, but shouldn't they know this establishments namesake?   
  
The burn in her throat (oh, parallels everywhere between the two of them, weren't there?) -- her grunt and hammering heart, the unladylike way she slips off the tool? She was still human. She revels in that. Marcus was everything smooth and suave and even (she knows) at times capable of being quite gentle. He usually has no need to force violence to make his advantages obvious. Oooh, except for with her.  
  
Standing on her heels in front of him as she casts those priest(ess) eyes herself, she spoke low and fervent.   
  
"You don't fight Marcus, you let things happen, you shape them to your best advantage, you idle and you wait and you play longer games than George Martin takes to write a book. I'm surprised sometimes, that you decide what breakfast you want." Er. Well, that was a little more insensitive than if she meant between two cereals, but the point stood..   
  
"You don't usually need to fight because you're already so far ahead of ninety eight percent of this planet, it's a waste of your time. And if anyone crosses you, at any given time you can sneak up behind them and rip their heart out. How boring!" No, she is not shivering from proximity, she's shivering from rage illkept. (And yes, people definitely stare down the bar now.)  
  
"Except for me, obviously, my own damn fault but for heavenssakes. If you thought about the promise I made you before you finalized her terrible decision? Then you are fighting, for once in I'd wager a century and a half, since Damocles held you to a standstill and Portia beat you. Yet even I can't fathom what you're fighting for. Can you? Maybes and indulgences and social experiments, goddammit, Marcus."  
  
Her hand reaches up and she starts sliding her hand through sweaty curls before tossing it over her shoulder.   
  
"For one instant can you just consider that when I promised to help you, it's because I, I who know all the things you hate that I do, who know all the things I shouldn't, know you aren't a losing battle? And fight for that instead?"  
  
Her hand sticks in her hair as she suddenly realizes what she'd said and tries to convince herself it was a vision and not another vain, desperate hope. (She's lying, and possibly the worst lie she's ever told.)  
  
Looking struck, Rebecca turns her eyes from over his shoulder, offers a quiet laugh under her breath. Oh, heavens, and Stefanie...he speaks of her with pride, of her interests being mutual...how had she missed that? (She was too busy being angry with him for drinking from the girls neck and giving her his blood so she could take poison).  
  
"...You actually care about her, don't you?"  
  
  "A more accurate description," he nods along, agreeing with that. It was all part of his self-preservation. Why fight his own battles when he could use other people and watch it all unfold before him like a chess match? Whoever stood before him on the day he did choose to fight his battle would come to regret it. He'd almost feel pity.  
  
He watches her slide off the stool, half thinking she's going to manage to trip over her heels but she holds her ground, of course she does, as she stands to face him and elaborates more on what he actually did. That was also fairly accurate, as most of her insinuations about him were. See what he meant about annoying?  
  
Her rage left her body in waves. Her pulse rising and her breath heavier as she spat every word with that loathing that she spoke of. It was an expression that not even Claudia could muster while wearing Rebecca's skin. If it weren't already apparent of how much she hated him, that would be it.  
  
"I've considered it," he answered after a quiet moment, the bar needed it after her rage, "and I've arrived at the  conclusion that you don't know everything." Now he stood as well, watching her step back as he did so, and sliding the bar stool in again before turning back to her.  
  
"You can't save a person who doesn't want to be saved." He spoke of Stefanie of course, who else would he be speaking of? Marcus almost smirked again. Then again, Stefanie had been past 'saving' when she had come to him.  
  
"Like you said, she's my progeny," he fixed his sleeves with two sharp tugs, "that means more than even you can understand."  
  
No, she doesn't. Rebecca exhales in somber heat. Strange, when you consider she ought to feel more regret he understood that now when his being unsure of her knowledge had been her first and best weapon against him. Marcus took that, he took everything. That's how his story went. No longer does she have any idea how their story would go. Their no longer biblical nor Shakespearean. Ha! And they say there were no new stories under the sun.   
  
Though to be sure there's something of Tristan & Isolde in his past and she often plays the part of Puck, puts flowers in peoples eyes until they see things the way of True Love (tm).   
  
Catching another fake gasp as she turns her head and grasps the bar for support, she shrugs his words off. "And who are we talking about, again? Stefanie decided upon her own, albeit faulty, salvation when she came to you -- she couldn't know the regret she'd be burdened with, so in your mind, in her mind, wasn't that what you were doing? Saving her?"   
  
Exhale still drawing that line between sad and warm, she draws herself up on her heels and looks up at this man who'd toppled empires in his extended time, who had the immortality even Caeser had craved and failed. Fierce and stubborn, she looks up at his superior stature and overwhelming strength with enough pride and anger, Rebecca could convince you she's looking down at him.   
  
(But then, Rebecca can convince most people of anything given the right circumstances).  
  
The corner of her eyes twitch and she shakes her head slowly, admitting she doesn't understand that with the twist in her neck. (Oh, that vulnerable, soft, exposed thing she forgets he hungers for every waking moment of every day).  
  
"You're right, I don't." She twists her neck further, gestures with it and her shoulder to the door as if suggesting they go somewhere more private (you know, where she could yell at him without being hauled off for disturbing the peace) irregardless of the extreme stupidity of being alone with him.  
  
(Marcus wouldn't kill her; at least not yet. Rebecca knows that.)  
  
"Show me," she orders in that Ladylike tone of command. "Who knows," her voice turns light as she mocks his earlier words, "you might even surprise me for once."  
  
+.  
  
She blinks slowly, steadily, unable not to be surprised by the statements. Did he think he was lying? Or was he honestly saying yes, he'd been a willing pawn as much as anything? Rebecca's head spins, only this time it isn't magic or alcohol.   
  
Then she scoffs.  
  
"You're not a child, Marcus." No matter how much he acts like one. "I'm not here to scold you like you stole cookies from me or told some kids that Santa Claus isn't real. I'm here," she narrows her eyes and takes a step closer, "because angry lectures hereafter numbered or not, the fact I don't know everything or not, I do want to help you. I want to, wholeheartedly, because I won't be your victim, and I won't be your killer."   
  
Her eyes flash over those words and she hikes her chest as she crosses her arms and rests them under it. Breath stalled at his simple, smirking denial, she shakes her head slowly.  
  
"I may not be able to understand your Maker-progeny bond," she says, trying to ignore the gulp in her throat watching him caress his, "but you're fooling yourself eternally if you think I can't comprehend you caring for someone. That's precisely the one thing all those years ago I did come to understand. What I can't understand is why, with all that passion in your cold, lifeless heart, you just let it lie latent."   
  
Unfolding her arms, this time she's the one, who reaches into his chest pocket and retrieves a mobile without a care in the world. Making it call herself, she even manages to take a picture of herself smirking for the contact image.   
  
Then she flattens her palm and holds it out for him.  
  
"There. Call, whenever you want to start asking me how. And number one? Unsurprisingly?" She slaps the phone back into his hand, goes on her toes and whispers in his ear, "Love conquers all."  
  
Then she turns on her heel and walks away.   
  



	44. Bananas!

"Just to be clear, did I drink so much that first time that I don't remember giving you my number or are you just that good?" Tony walked the cobbled streets of Paris, hands in the pockets of his coat as he spoke with his quickly becoming good friend Rebecca. He was surprised to receive her call, and with a certain amount of veiled urgency too. Tony already revealed that many a woman called him with desperation and he knew just how to remedy it. Tony didn't think he had ever been shot down so fast and so dexterously.

Unbuttoning the bottom button of her sweater and then immediately rebuttoning with an anxious shake of her hair back, she smiles slightly at the response. Pressing the phone harder to her ear to avoid the wind and walking quicker, she returns, "You mean you don't remember singing Justin Timberlake into it as your personalized ringtone for me, Tony?"

"Wait, it's coming back to me," he grinned, recalling the night of their chance meeting as they both snooped through Gina's things. May you rest in pieces, good for nothing bitch. He'd take another drink if he could! But Tony knew it was probably bad taste to sip from a flask in the middle of the day in public. He still had some class.  
  
She paused and then turned, ducking into what transpires to be a dusty bookshop. Grinning at it, she shakes off the wind and convinces herself it's warm now.  
  
"What are you up to at this moment?"  
  
"Summer love," he remembered pleasantly as he reached the farmer's market and walked up to a stand with fresh fruit, "shopping. Want some yogurt parfait later on, love bananas." Too easy to make a joke so he kept from it.  
  
"Bananas." She echoes in his ear with bemusement and giggles before saying gratefully, "Thank you for keeping from that joke, but I daresay I found it funny anyways."   
  
She only says that, because she knows Tonio hated having his jokes anticipated but on the other hand -- hated someone thinking he wasn't hilarious more than that. So if she has to anticipate (something she still hasn't got quite accepted but as it was her lot in life, one of these days Rebecca knows she probably should) -- couldn't she at least let him know she appreciated his joke?

"That's just how skilled I am," he grinned, undoubtably pleased that he managed to amuse her even with the faintest trace of an untold joke. He really was good.  
  
"Shopping, though!" Rebecca says brightly, running fingers back through her hair, "Parfait sounds lovely, mind if I join you? Only I'd...well, like to speak to you just not whispering to a mobile in a bookshop while getting dirty looks from whoever that man is in that corner there."  
  
"Not at all, I'm at the market near Place de la Bourse. Then again you whispering and hiding behind bookshelves is quite the image-- what are you wearing?"  
  
"Undoubtedly." Rebecca chuckles and then waves off the glare her amusement wrought on apparently disturbed shoppers. People ought to laugh more often, she wants to tell them, then finds herself mouthing 'Sorry' instead and going to brave the cold instead. Look, facing down Marcus takes a lot of energy, even if she had done it yesterday afternoon. She wanted to sleep again. Only she knew she had to speak to Tony after that, so off she went and here she was walking back down the way she came to the metro so she could take it to the market.  
  
"What an impertinent question." Rebecca scoffs in high amusement, hand rebuttoning the top of her sweater again as she gapes at thin air. "Are you always so forward, Tony, or is it just for your girls and/or happily married women?"  
  
She pauses, fumbling in her purse a moment for the metro pass and muttering 'oh bollocks' as it slips out of view in her purse when her thumb fails to grip. Rubbish. Her hands never work properly in the cold. It was going to be a miracle if she got this touchscreeb phone turned off with icicles for fingers.  
  
"I'll be there soon." She adds with a promise, "So you'll know soon enough, Tony." Then, with after click, she warms her hand vigorously inside the jacket until she could get the phone off, by this point already in route. A few solitaire games later, she exits near the market, again lamenting her lack of GPS ability...but then, Tony has a very memorable form and face.   
  
"Cheerio, luv." She says with a wide, slightly ridiculous grin for someone she'd only met a few weeks back, and then pulls him in to hug.  
  
"Always," he answered with a smirk, waving his fingers at a group of giggling girls that walked by as he inspected some blueberries. Holding the phone momentarily to his neck, he asked in French if he could have a quick taste and then plucked a berry into his mouth. Humming, he nodded in approval and then gestured that he would take it.  
  
"Say bollocks again," he grinned against the phone, just teasing but she hung up soon enough. Pocketing the phone, he paid for the blueberries and kept shopping.  
  
Some time later on, a couple of bags in hand, he saw Rebecca walking up and waved at her with a smile, walking up and whistling before hugging her back.  
  
"Hottest mom ever, what's up?"  
  
Absolutely positive that Rowland's ears would be turning pink with wary-eyed mostly-100%-fake over-protectiveness (there was no need to protect what you have no chance of losing), Rebecca giggles, says 'pshaw' near his ear and then just for fun repeats, 'bollocks' as she gives an extra squeeze. It was just fairer that way. Tony couldn't squeeze her as he'd likely crush her to death, so she does it for him! (Er, the squeeze, not the crushing to death).  
  
"What would your own mother say?" She asks as she pulls back with a cheeky grin, sneaky to avoid the immediate question. Come on, she might be psychic, but she doesn't need a vision to know bringing Stefanie and Marcus up is going to erase his easy smile.   
  
Aww, she repeated the English curse word for him! That's how he knew they were going to be the best of friends. It wouldn't hurt him to have friends more in his age bracket given that his current company nowadays were mostly teenagers. Sure, sometimes he enjoyed acting like he was twelve but still.  
  
"Relieved that I haven't developed an Oedipus complex, I think." He already had killed his own father after all, that was like half the legend already. Kind of.  
  
"And yes, we have no bananas," he pouted briefly before he sighed, "some berries, I like berries, not strawberries though, and once I saw these nectarines I simply had to have them too. The quest continues, and I've added a member to my party!" He gestured at her with a grin.   
  
Raising a questioning eyebrow at the remark, she pauses, then decidedly tilts her head, accepts it and doesn't ask.   
  
"True!" She says instead, because no, she didn't ask universe so please no visions, no sudden flashes of insight, God she'd driven enough people away lately. Of course, that was intentional for the most part. When one was taking the soul of a centuries old mass murdering psychopathic vampire, one tried to keep innocent people out of the way. Now if only she could put Blair in a safety bubble.   
  
She cleared her throat.  
  
"Aw, I feel special." Rebecca said as he gestured at her, preening with her hair a second, "and I often feel that way with necterines too actually. Although it's more because my family would eat crisps for every meal if I let them -- I know I'm supposed to be like...a healthy food nut and wear multi-colored scarves but it's really only motherhood that got me to stop eating burgers every other day of the week."  
  
Look, once one went to the 19th century and had their food every day for six months, one was very happy to see a McDonald's arch on the horizon.  
  
"Who doesn't love a good double bacon cheeseburger?" Well, apart from vegans and vegetarians and those lactose intolerance or diary allergies or religions and beliefs that kept them from eating pork and beef. So, okay, the list is sizable.  
  
"But my Nonna's got Italian-Matron senses. If I go too long eating fast food, without a doubt, I get a call from her asking how I am, how I'm doing with my book, how dare I not call her sooner and you've been eating trash for two weeks haven't you Tonio?" He chuckles, smirking a bit and then adds more to himself than anyone else, "Reminds me, I have to call her soon."  
  
Gesturing for Rebecca to walk with him as he heads to other stands, he's pulled in by some grapefruits and smiles, "how are the kids, by the way? And mighty Rowland, of course."  
  
Following, she was half paying careful attention, half considering to herself how wonderful it was when people decide to share family stories all on their own. It said something about them -- their desire to connect, certainly, but also their trust you won't use tiny moments of vulnerability against them one day. Rebecca knows what it says about her that she'd pried into Marcus' back story all on her own, and she knows she was never going to make that mistake again. That, and she isn't sure she's even going to survive doing it once anyway.  
  
On the flip side, she'd told Tony on the occassion of first meeting a nuanced and detailed history of herself with 'mighty Rowland', her champion. She could share too, see! (Trust others...well, maybe someday.)  
  
"Wonderful." Rebecca beams, even if she's not being 100% truthful. "Well, Rowland's a worrier. But he is a _wonderful_ worrier."  
  
Her grin was cheeky.  
  
"Except I have given him more reason lately to worry, so. I bear some responsibility. Which probably brings up the fact that I completely wanted to see you just to hang and also because I kind of met Stefanie yesterday, but," she waves it off with a brave smile, "they're good. Blair's buried in her room making top secret Christmas presents and spending all our coin jar on glitter, Alec is building a bridge in our living room. How's your brother?"  
  
Why did that wonderful sound a little forced to him? Oh yeah because of how she sounded on the phone and there was that small detail of them meeting at a psycho's office and she had the current interest of a centuries old vampire who turned not only his father but his...er, housemate and current frequent lover.  
  
Speaking of, "wait, what?" She had met Stefanie? Tony's eyes subconsciously drifted to a scarf covered neck and had to remind himself to look back up and pay attention.  
  
"They sound great, fantastic kids, love to meet them someday, Olivier's still an ass, what about Stefanie?"  
  
The rapid lightning-round style sudden response to her questions make her smirk pick up and then swallow a chuckle. Of course, maybe she should have chuckled. Maybe, because she was as leary of bringing Stefanie up as he was apparently of hearing about her and she couldn't miss the way he glances at her neck. Undoing her scarf, she proves she wasn't marked.  
  
On the other hand a flicker of unease skips up her spine as she thinks, maybe she shouldn't give Tony her exposed neck.  
  
"You're welcome anytime, sorry to hear that, and yes, I ran into her -- literally -- on the street yesterday. She, er." Pushed her up against the wall, eerily like her maker in the alley until Becca revealed having stabbed Marcus.  
  
"Well! We eventually went for coffee."  
  
Grateful that at least Stefanie hadn't taken a nibble out of Rebecca's neck, he nevertheless didn't spend much time gazing at it. Tony managed to keep his desire for blood limited to when he saw it, and actively worked at not associating necks with it, but he still didn't tempt it.  
  
"Coffee," he repeated, grabbing a grapefruit and weighing it, giving it a little squeeze and returning it back to the pile before picking up another and inspecting it the same way, "She neglected to mention then again I don't think I've told her we're friends."  
  
Tony shrugged, "So what did you talk about?"  
  
Curious as she is by his clear 'I must pretend this is completely casual' attitude, she tentatively puts her scarf back as she realized: there's need to know why, she just needs to listen to her body telling her to be wary. Thankfully, listening to her instincts was easy for her.  
  
Checking a grapefruit herself because her mouth was starting to water, she relents with a small smile, "Yeah, coffee. Well. After I convinced her I wasn't on the menu."   
  
Her eyes flick back up to him as she tosses him the grapefruit.  
  
"This one's good. Also, I'm glad we're officially friends, I'm honored." She winks.  
  
"Newborns," he sighed, shaking his head because it seemed a safer word and category to mutter than Stefanie's name. He vividly remembered how she had held him by the neck her...second day, was it? Granted, he had that coming. Tony hadn't been the most understanding of people, he'd tried to be but he wasn't a very accepting guy. Kind of a bummer when he first found out, tried to change it, honest, but didn't work out.  
  
Catching the grapefruit, he lifted it to his nose and took a whiff, smiling and then nodding to himself, grabbing a paper bag and adding it in there, wanting to find at least two more. He ate grapefruits with a spoon, so good.  
  
"Oh it became pretty official in my eyes a few drinks of whiskey in," he grinned, "but most people have a three meeting requirement and voila! This is thrice."  
  
"Voila!"  
  
And not when they were bearing their secrets to convince the other one to trust them part-ways pretty please? Rebecca wants to chuckle again but it seemed just so beautifully domestic of him to say they had met three times and thus voila, friends. About as domestic and cute as his little headshake as he says 'newborns', like he was half-apologizing for his new puppy humping her leg.   
  
Amused by the analogy, she resumes looking through the grapefruits as her eyes scan to make sure there was sufficient noise that they aren't overheard. You never knew when Marcus was listening in.  
  
"And I know she's newborn...talked to her once she got off me -- I love how unsurprised you are by the way -- she told me how she was turned and where she was living, went for coffee, yelled at Marcus--like I said, Rowland's worrying is kind of my responsibility."  
  
Tony chuckled as she remarked loving that he was unsurprised and only had to shrug his shoulders. With so many bombs dropped on him this month alone, not to mention his entire life, Tony just had to roll with it. Besides, Stef was a ball of anger and short temper with a newfound penchant for violence. It was going to burst every so often.  
  
"You yelled at Marcus?" Tony raised his hand for a high five, chuckling and put another grapefruit in the bag, "You are quickly becoming one of my favorite people."  
  
A high-five. Rebecca blinks, genuinely surprised by the hand held up flat for her. Wasn't that news usually followed by wondering who's dead at the very least? Or was he going to whack her for being that dense and foolhardy? She'd pinched herself several times while sitting at that bar, wondering what the hell was wrong with her that she'd seek him out willingly to fight with him. But nothing doing; that ship had sailed a long time ago, so she laughs and high fives him back.  
  
"Yes, I did. He doesn't know how I'm alive -- and he hates me, but he won't kill me, at least until he figures it out. He will one day. So! What should I do, run and hide while he figures it out and wait him out? Door number two, try and kill him? I rather enjoy not being a murderer. Door number three, report him to the authorities? In Paris? See, cause, your brother already knows he's here."  
  
She shrugs, lips twitching and steals a berry to taste it off the rack. Maybe she could get some for Blair to snack on.   
  
"So, I choose door four: use the fact I have this slight position over him that really simply evened the playing field to bother him, poke at him, and also tell him he can't kill anyone. So when he _did_ kill someone, and I don't care if she drank poison on her own or not, she wouldn't have without his blood, I _had_ to at least yell at him. Or else I'd lose my credibility."  
  
She pauses, suddenly not sure if Tony had actually known all she said. What did Stefanie tell him? Oops.  
  
There was no use hiding the distaste he felt for his brother having basically autonomous power over Parisian police. Tony was pretty sure that if Olivier wasn't his brother, and some random guy on the street he only knew as D'Grey, he'd hate him too. Somewhere there was a parallel universe like that.   
  
Amused at the description of choosing via door number, he applauded, mentally because one hand was busy, her disregarding door number two and realized he wouldn't have. In fact, he still considered it if there ever came the day he was driven to it and trust him, he was already close. But then he would be the murderer of -two- of Chantel's vampire family members. He'd rather not die by that redheaded Fury's hands.  
  
Nodding along as she explained door number four, Tony suddenly felt his heart skip a beat, his head turning as he looked at Rebecca, his body suddenly still.  
  
When she had finished talking, he asked quietly, "She killed herself?"  
  
...Yeah, oops, he clearly hadn't known that. Stefanie wouldn't have told him -- she hadn't even told her, the not-by-chance-because-Rebecca-doesn't-believe-in-coincidences meeting had included the shot of her turning, and the cold icy shock that let her know she just met a vampire. Then Marcus, of course, had confirmed it. Used the fact Stefanie poisoned herself as a technical loophole to get away with their 'deal' and pretend he hadn't ignored the spirit of it. Actually, he hadn't done that. He'd been proud of the fact he technically didn't break their deal.   
  
Rebecca's head hurt.  
  
Picking up the box of raspberries slowly and toying with the frayed plastic edge, she nods once. No use pretending she hadn't said what she had. Her response is just as quiet.  
  
"Yes. He...asked, I guess, how she wanted to die once he agreed to turn her, so..." her throat was dry, her face crumpled in awkward sympathy as she adds quickly, "...she didn't tell you that?"   
  
Tony pursed his lips and was momentarily impressed-- with Marcus. That sneaky, sly, conniving bastard. He gave her a choice, literally put her life in her own hands and now Stefanie loved him even more for it! Bastard, brilliant evil bastard, Tony hated him. Hating him was a lot easier than thinking too deeply about Stefanie dying again.  
  
He cleared his throat and turned a little to pick up another grapefruit and knew he couldn't squeeze it without destroying it so he just put it in the bag and took the euros out of his wallet to pay the attendant, smiling and telling him to keep the change.  
  
"Nah but in all fairness, I didn't ask...or talk as much as I roll out clever snide remarks."  
  
Frankly, Rebecca was just glad she wasn't abruptly covered in grapefruit juice. Bemused by how gingerly he suddenly holds the fruit, as if protecting his precious the One ring, she follows him a few steps behind to buy the berries herself and not wanting to interrupt whatever he was doing to keep calm. Well, as calm as she could while telling him about his friend (and she suspects that's too general a term) committing suicide.  
  
After buying her own berries, she heads out with him with a little head shake and snort, commenting as lightly as she could.  
  
"Well, then I expect I don't have to point out why she'd be less than willing to open up."

"And yet you already have," Tony smirked, wagging his finger and then chuckled, "behaving like a friend already." At least, behaving like all of the friends he was used to making. Not afraid to tell him when he was erring and when they weren't buying the bullshit he was trying to sling their way. Basically, every friend he made refused to coddle him. It wasn't a bad thing, coddling people made for a different kind of person that couldn't really face the world for what it truly was: cruel and wonderful.

"And is the next step suggesting whiskey with our parfaits?"  
  
 She does want to be his friend; Rebecca likes Tony, the Italian was implicitly written under her skin with a smirk from the moment he agreed to help her with Gina and sang an American pop star from her childhood in the same night. At the same time--today she was there to check up on him as much as tease him, so.

"Patron XO Cafe," he suggested instead, licking his lips as he thought about it and then nodded. Yes, that or some Bailey's would be perfect with their parfait. He didn't miss the plural pronoun there, and realized it was probably half because she wanted off the street given that Marcus could have spies everywhere. Tony wasn't that worried but.

After toying a few seconds with her scarf, she adds a bit quieter, still gentle, "Hey. At least you know she's not being used?"  
  
At Rebecca's attempt to comfort him, he scoffed and shook his head, "that was never a worry. You've met her. Please," he shook his head again.  
  
The paper bag crinkles under her fingers, adding popping sounds to the laugh she gives in response again, not sure what else to say to that. That softens her smile again and she tilts her head, suggesting, "Maybe, all right true, you're right. But still, I was glad to know that, if only because Marcus does seem to...well. Care about her."  
  
"Bananas!" He moved over to grab some and handed them immediately to pay for them. The ingredients for his parfait were complete.  
  
"What?" He scoffed as he put the bananas in a bag as well, "Come on, Marcus Ellwood care? Have I entered an alternate universe where he's capable of expressing emotions?" Even if he could, that was too damn bad. He didn't need to care about her, Tony did that.  
  
"The last time I remember someone getting that excited about bananas they were shouting at Captain Jack Harkness they were too good a source of potassium to waste," Rebecca recalls with pinking cheeks from the wind and a fond smirk. She might still be getting to know Tony, but she could tell that she was always going to win when comparing him to some form of pop culture. How did this boy have time to even watch- all of these things?  
  
"The ninth doctor is one of Blair's favorites," she explains as he returns with the bananas. After nodding that she was great with the idea of Baileys, she smirks as she said, "And he certainly thinks he's in an alternate universe lately yes, what with his swearing he's not afraid of me and yet we both know that wasn't true when we met."  
  
She rubs over her scarf again.  
  
"In one of my favorite episodes ever. I love nine too, but my doctor is Eleven, he's the first one I watched. Not to mention wow, how I love River Song," he nodded, smiling brighter now as he always did when he talked about his favorite things.   
  
"Obviously he's got to save face after all he's a big bad vampire, he could snap your neck in an instant, humans are the scum between his toes, all that jazz." Tony rolled his eyes in boredom and then waved his hand dismissively, not of her but of Marcus and the self-important and arrogant attitude of most vampires in general.  
  
"Still, not the best idea to have his interest and yelling at him? Oh darling, Paris could be quite precarious for you. Fortunately, I know just the place to go here that's safe enough, at the very least Marcus proof. I know it is because it's also Olivier D'Grey proof. Ready for some parfait?"   
  
Ha. For the first time since meeting him, she felt the fact she was minutely older than him, few years anyways -- as she watched Ten first, and had cried when she heard the lines first spoken 'I don't want to go.' Now, considering his bitter little ramble, she decides not to bother complaining about that.  
  
"Oh, you have had the displeasure of meeting him then!" She half-teases, even knowing that probably was his just explaining how *all* vampires were. Pausing with a lift of her finger to tap against her lips, she adds, "Though Stefanie wasn't like that, yesterday."  
  
Grin lifting up at the way he knows Marcus won't follow them, she nods and gestures with the bag.  
  
"Lead the way."  
  
Met dozens like him, sure. So what if he's only said four words to the guy and it was declining an offer for sex. . .when you said it that way, it sounded weird but it was true.

"No, she isn't but get to know her a little, she becomes increasingly unpleasant." No, he wasn't bitter, not at all. He was good, he was okay, he was about to have some parfait after all.


	45. Sosta!

He lead them towards the metro, talking more about their favorite doctor companions and the like. Getting off at a stop, instead of exiting the station he walked towards a service door. Taking a key out of his pocket, he slipped it into the open lock and then turned it 90 degrees to the left. Opening the door and pocketing his key again, he held open the door to his apartment.  
  
"After you," he grinned, waiting until they were both inside to explain.  
  
"Yeah, it's a transit door, but it's off the grid, some tinkering on my part made it untraceable, as well as burn off my eyebrows more on that later, and it's the only way in and out of my place. Spent months in Paris without Olivier knowing I was here." Here meaning a penthouse apartment with 3/4ths of the wall made of windows.  
  
"One way mirrors," he motioned as he began giving the tour, "anti-vampire wards, as much silver appliances, utensils, and furniture I could handle without it becoming an eye-sore, hidden weapons room, where is it you may ask? Well it's hidden, but think Men in Black style. Upstairs is the bedroom," he motioned, "gym somewhere around the back, and a room that likes to change what it is depending on the day. Last time I was here it was a sauna. And all with my own money." He placed the bags on the kitchen counter.  
  
"I'm kind of a big name in mommy porn, no big deal," he shrugged his shoulders, waving his hand.  
  
"Mommy porn?"  
  
Because that was her first question, when ushered through an illegal transit door to a secret nuclear -- no, vampire bunker -- obviously. With a grin lighting up on her face as she draws herself up, trying to look unimpressed like she had when first introduced to Faye manor a hundred fifty years before hand. Rebecca is absolutely positive she fails, but it was likely for the best. Damocles had always known he was all-that -- Tony could stand her reminding him of it a few times anyway.   
  
"Oh God," she says as an after thought, bemused by the one-way mirrors, "wait, no don't give me your pen name. I might have read it."  
  
And then she'd never be able to read it again with any real enjoyment. Amusement though, yes. With a three-sixty turn to take the place in, she sets the bag she bought down on the counter and grins at him.  
  
"...Okay. I'll overlook the fact that it's kind of an illegal method of travel just because...yeah, this is really pretty cool." And she won't mention that means Stefanie hadn't been here, obviously.  
  
Twirling a strand of hair around her finger, she adds with a small smirk, "Blending machine is where, Mr. Porn Star?"  
  
"For the best," he nodded, knowing already that he's ruined any future novels for Daniella at least, but maybe that had something to do with Carey and Josiah being inspired by her best friend and boyfriend. Just a little though!  
  
"It's not ille- yes it is but look at how pretty, look at the view!" Yeah, that was reason enough to justify the illegal transit door that transported them from underground metro to penthouse apartment. Even when he tried to do his best, and this was before he had ever killed anyone, there was no escaping his proclivity towards illegal actions.  
  
"I don't participate in porn, I just write it," he huffs and then grins, opening a shelf and taking out the blender, plugging it in to the socket.  
  
"Man, haven't been here in ages...I moved back into D'Grey manor you see and I have a nasty habit of running away so I'm working on that. Still, I love this place, it's mine." It wasn't exactly home, he was hard-pressed to call any place home, but it was just his, like his car, and that was perfect for him.  
  
Giggling at the quick way he gives up even bothering to pretend it isn't illegal, she shrugs a shoulder. Ah well, who cares, look at the view! Actually she was more concerned with the *how* here, because illegal transit doors...was seriously dangerous. When he was just running away from vampires (and, the subtext said, his brother) it was allright -- but couldn't that be used to, you know, assassinate people from inside their homes?  
  
She was spending too much time with Marcus on the mind.  
  
Taking the bananas out of his bag and reaching for a cutting board and said, "I like it. Cozy, for a hideout slash secret martial arts center." Slipping a knife free, after peeling back the first banana she sets it down to start cutting.  
  
"I like being comfortable," even as he trained his body into a self-defense slash killing machine. It really sucked how dependent he was on comfort in his life now when the first decade of his life he lived in a small two bedroom apartment. Now he was a rich snob who pretended not to be. Sometimes. Kind of.

"Comfort's important." Rebecca agrees importantly in tone too, as she was aware he was being half ironic, except she wasn't lying. One thing she could give her nineteenth century soujourn was that they knew how to make a lady feel comfortable. Which, her nineteenth century husband was truly very good at providing without even trying sometimes.

"And you know, I'll have to take your word for it on Stefanie's temperament but considering how new she is, I must say I was impressed I could talk her down."  
  
Though, she pauses and tilts her head to say, "Although I guess I was banking on the fact that if I warned her I had stabbed her maker once, she'd be more afraid than anything else."

"Well she's stubborn and determined to prove everyone wrong so there's definitely some mind over matter work at here," he nodded, getting the fruits out of the bag and then folding the paper bags, setting her berries aside for when she leaves.  
  
"Was she?" He asked, curious, "Did she seem protective of him?"  
  
Slicing through the pieces she already made to cut quarter pieces free and then...maybe stealing one to pop in her mouth too. Maybe two. They were quartersized!   
  
"Yeah, now that you mention it. A little." Sure, except she also cracked her back against the wall for mentioning it, but she also did let her go.   
  
Looking up after beginning to cut the next banana, she doesn't watch the blade as she continues, "But that's expected, isn't it? I mean, I never understood being grateful to someone who killed you but..."  
  
"Yeah I suppose, they say there's no human equivalent but I think Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia are a good-," he broke off suddenly as hot crimson crossed his vision as a sharp knife sliced across soft, fragile skin. Later he would laugh at how similar scenes were present in almost every vampire movie and/or show made with the target audience of teenage girls, but right now he only had one thought on his mind, and it was much more simple, and brutal.  
  
Tony was taken completely by surprise, with no preparation for even the thought of bloodshed unlike every other instance before with the threat always hanging above the situations. Instinct pulled him in without a second thought; he didn't even try to fight it. He was diving for her hand in desperation, wrenching it towards him hard and closing his teeth and lips around it.  
  
"As in the Pope's son--" Rebecca had begun to say, forgetting that if she was going to use her hands to speak she probably shouldn't be holding a blade, forgetting not to cut towards herself. None of her abstract omissions, however, appear as important as what her friend had left out. Maybe she really should have asked what he meant by such non-chalance to newborn vampires.  
  
Rebecca has a moment to lift her palm in pain -- a moment to consider her utter confusion, because she could feel a beating pulse in Tony and as he yanks her forward he only continued to prove how warm, desperate -- *human*, he was.  
  
Yes, even as he closed his mouth around as many bloody fingers as he could shove in.   
  
"Tonio! Stop!" Her high-gasp cut out at the strange feeling of his tongue sponging blood and pain from the cut. Eyes wide as she dropped the knife hilt to the counter (it seemed like a bad idea to have something he could cut her further with in such easy reach), she gasped out again as she tried to shove him away, but couldn't make him move an inch.  
  
(Seriously, what the fuck was he?)

His eyes closed momentarily in ecstasy at the first hot taste of the blood rushing over his tongue and down his throat. They flew open again as the flow slowed, his hand gripping tighter around the wrist, twisting and pulling before digging his blunt teeth into the cut to pry it open further, trying to rip away flesh, anything to get what he wanted.  
  
"Tony," she gasps again, incredibly grateful for Rowland insisting they learn a few phrases before visiting Naples,  "sosta, per favore, sosta!"  
  
Of course 'stop, please, stop' did make up the bulk of her Italian, and when she saw the veins around his eyes, she knew he couldn't hear her anyways.  
  
His ears buzzed, recognizing a sound, even that it was in Italian, or close enough, kind of like his mother's Italian accent. She knew it almost perfectly, but it always sounded foreign. His other hand snatched towards her neck quickly. Shhh, he thought as he squeezed to make the noise stop (to feel the pulse thrum underneath his fingertips), I'm eating.  
  
Whimpers peppering her lips, she chokes back from murmuring 'oww'. She'd sound like Blair, asking her to kiss a cut better, only this danger has not passed, this was real, present, harsh.  
  
(Rowland, love, I'm never making light of your worrying again.)  
  
Only Rowland wasn't there. As tears pearl instinctively in her eyes when Tony takes her throat in the other hand, breath arrests. Not good, her mind thought hazily, for a few moments strangely glad she couldn't think of the pain in her hand as her body struggles for air instead. Sealing her eyes shut with the tears as she struggles against his side, Rebecca stills to breathe, long and slow, deep as she could manage to fill her lungs.   
  
Trying to rip her hand away from his mouth was fruitless (haha, unlike the fruit all over the table), and she opens her eyes again with an unnatural calm. If Marcus couldn't kill her, her friend wasn't going to. Besides, it was blunt teeth pushing, tearing her flesh -- he has no fangs to sink to steal more of her blood.   
  
She brings her knee up instead, ignoring the fact he felt like a brick wall, because even vampires have to be sensitive somewhere right? And that heartbeat resounding in her ear might be her own, but she could feel his too-human pulse from his hands at her neck.  
  
A flash of pain burst through him, making him groan loudly and drop to the floor, hands and mouth uncurling from tender flesh, as much from the surprise as the actual pain itself. Eyes closing as he leaned his forehead against the cool kitchen tiles, when they opened again they were azure blue, not black and red.  
  
He groaned again, thinking faintly that if he couldn't have kids before, he wasn't having them now. Rolling on to his side, he faced away from the direction Rebecca had hurried away to and used the willpower he had left to hurry at breakneck speed to the bathroom, locking himself in it before falling to the floor again, sitting against the door with his hands over his crotch, groaning still.  
  
Breath gushes from her lips as her lungs reject the sudden flash flood of air, the hand he didn't have rushing up to caress her own tender neck as she stumbles away from him. The feeling of his mouth ripping off her hand hurt quite as much as when he'd attached, but it's forgotten when she sees him fall. Back hard against the sink, bleeding hand hidden in the basin as she turns the water on, her face crumples with stricken sympathy hearing him, watching him. As she runs the warm water over her palm (still without looking, hasn't she learned her lesson yet?), she finds enough breath to murmur, "Tony?"  
  
And then he's gone.  
  
Biting down on her bottom lip softly as she hears the bathroom door slam, Rebecca rubs over her throat a few more times, bewildered, frightened, hurt.  
  
The warm water had masked her pain by now from the cut though, so she knows the hurt she feels isn't physical anymore. After letting it run a few minutes, she turns finally to rip paper towels off the rack, clean her blood from the countertop too. The bloody banana sections she throws away one handed, the other grasping tight around a towel to keep pressure on the torn, abused flesh. After the sink, counter, and floor seem free of her blood, she glances at the transit door. Then shakes her head. No, she wasn't running anywhere: if that locked door meant anything, she'd wager it was her friend was trying to keep himself away, locked up in shame, and Rebecca can't stand the thought.   
  
So after fetching neosporin, gauze and a bandage tape from her purse (she was around Marcus yesterday, of course she carries that) -- after applying it gently to the wound, she goes to the freezer, pulls ice out, wraps a dozen cubes up in a towel for him and sets it gingerly on the end of the counter.   
  
Then she goes back to the blender, finished cutting the bananas with her other hand, adds them, the berries, yogurt and granola in, puts the cap on, and let's the whirl of the blades herald him from the bathroom.  
  
The last thing he expected to hear was shuffling around his kitchen and then the blender running. Eyebrows furrowed together, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, both who had somehow managed to remain blood free.  
  
What the hell was she doing?  
  
Letting his hand fall again and blinking rapidly, he looked down at his shirt and saw some blood had dribbled onto it. Forcing himself to stand, he opened the mirror cabinet and took off his shirt, leaving him in the ill-named wife beater. Grabbing a hydrogen peroxide bottle and a cotton ball, he started cleaning his shirt. He didn't care what his Nonna said, there was nothing better for bloodstains. And no he didn't get the tip from Cosmo on essential items to have during your period. Also he had no access to salt and ice, they were in the kitchen.  
  
After getting the stains out, he washed his face, gargling water and spitting it out a dozen times before doing it with mouthwash. Turning to the door again, he hesitated as he reached for the handle, and noticed his hand shaking. Frowning, he rubbed his face again and forced himself through the door. The least he owed Rebecca was an explanation.  
  
He reached the kitchen and averted his eyes, moving slowly, he grabbed the handmade ice pack and sat on a bar stool, wincing twice as he sat and put the ice on. Oww. He still didn't say anything, he was trying to find the best way to begin (and trying to avoid looking at her bandaged fingers and bruising throat).  
  
She did not quiver when the door opened. She didn't. Her hand stayed firmly planted on the top of the blender, squishing gauze and bandages into it to use the whirring blades exuding force through metal and plastic to keep pressure on the wound. The effect was strangely calming. It had stopped bleeding, at any rate, though Rebecca suspects that has less to do with healing, more to do with her numb arm feeling like there was no blood left to fall.  
  
A wary glance takes in his changed appearance: the tank undershirt, the fresh-washed face, the ice he takes. He looks like Alec does when about to come out with a grand story explaining how the toaster broke through no fault of his or Blair's, and what that has to do with the garden rake in her kitchen: guilty, frightened of her disapppintment, and wildly creative. It promised to be a good story at least, Rebecca thinks to herself, lamenting her husband's absence to share not-proud-really-oh-okay-yes-we-are sighs and glances.   
  
Flicking the blender off when she realizes he's not going to say anything yet, she looks up and asks, "Glasses are which cabinet?"  
  
There's no verbal response, just surprised blinking and a head nod to the right one, which Rebecca takes with a soft, "Thanks."  
  
It's not until she has them and spoons as she starts pouring two parfaits that she speaks again.  
  
"Sorry I kneed you. It was...er, survival instinct."  
  
"Please don't apologize, you were entirely in the right...thanks for not stabbing me, I know I deserved it," he chewed on his bottom lip, careful not to break the skin as he continued to think and thought, fuck it, and just decided to start talking.  
  
"So, I'm half vampire," he nodded, pursing his lips, "and I have a big problem with self-control. I abstained from blood for the first 24 years and 10 months of my life because I have a deep, strong, hatred of all things vampire. I'm sorry, I am so sorry I hurt you, there is no excuse, absolutely none. Nothing justifies this, my behavior, me- it's on me and I'm so so sorry. I should have told you before, been straight with you so you'd know what I am." After all, at least Marcus knew how not to flinch at something as small as a papercut.  
  
For someone who had been sitting in admonished, childish -- albeit apologetic -- silence, once Tony opened his mouth Rebecca was wondering if he was the one gasping for breath now. Seriously, did he pause at all? Maybe that wasn't important. Maybe Rebecca was thinking on that as hard as she could, so she didn't focus on the fact he was saying he has less control than the three-week old newborn vampire she had coffee with the day before. Marcus' scared her more than Tony does even now, she thinks, because there was a large difference between choosing to drink someone's blood and losing control. The latter was more sympathetic, if literally more of a threat -- because the former meant the person (read: vampire) chooses to endanger you. The omnipresence of that was suffocating.   
  
Blinking as he continues, a small, wavery smile appears on her lips before she pushes his parfait closer to him, half begging with her gaze that he take it.   
  
"Thank you. I accept your apologies." Rebecca whispers that.  
  
'Nothing that justifies me', she heard. That was a far cry from 'nothing justifies my behavior' too.   
  
"I haven't been straight with you either, Tonio." She says first, nodding. Her nails rap against the side of her glass as she looks at him. "I mean I... should have guessed, since I knew your father was...well, I guess I assumed you were adopted." But does that mean Marcus could have kids too?  
  
Oh, fuck, brain, hurts.  
  
"Anyways," she clears her throat and the smile was wavery yes, but back, "yeah, I haven't told you how I met Rowland, or that he was born in 1860, or why I know Marcus. Why it is he's half listening to me, half enjoying tormenting me...what I am, basically. In fact!" She raises her index finger and points at him with a smirk.  
  
"I bet if you include physics and some of the pharm's regulations, I've broken more laws than you."  
  
Tony took the parfait from her without looking up and without a second word. Taking the spoon, he suddenly felt like a child again, being comforted with a sweet dessert. The only thing that was missing from this picture was her two children and her husband, then he'd be a literal big kid. He was fully kidding of course, he was thankful those kids weren't here to see him hurt their mom, but he was half-wishing Rowland was here if only so he could give him a different kind of just desserts.  
  
He took a little of the parfait in the spoon and took a bite, looking up as she admitted not being honest with him either. It was only fair, and he didn't think her secret was life-threatening to him in any way.  
  
"I, highly doubt that," he said, remembering the number of people's necks he's snapped, "...wait, your husband was born in 1860?" Tony blinked. Was Rowland a vampire as well? Was there some vampire beef between him and Marcus? Consider him fully confused.  
  
"You don't have to tell me. You kept it from me for a reason, I doubt it's changed. Certain secrets keep you safe, others cause harm. Mine, the latter. Yours?"  
  
"The former," Rebecca admits with guilt slipping in to her words and smile now as she nods to him. Then she takes a big bite out of her parfait as she admits, "But our stories aren't as neatly divided as they once were considering Stefanie. And I've never been big on thinking keeping a secret from someone actually does anything but piss them off. Or get a righteous Faye to yell at you. Both, usually."  
  
Except for once. The Lord and Protector had his fair share of righteous anger at her secrecy, oh sure, but for once. The mental image of Damocles shaking his head her in amazement as he stood in her modern apartment leaps to mind. He hadn't minded her secret when he saw it all up close and personal. In fact, Rebecca reminds herself, he didn't want to know anything. Damocles was one of the rare few knowledgeable enough to prefer to leave the future be. He wasn't ready for it, he'd said, and then added quietly, this was proof that Rowland was braver than him.  
  
Then he, you know, threatened her if she ever told him he said that, yadda yadda.   
  
Rebecca swallows the parfait mouthful.  
  
"Yes, he was born in 1860. I met him in 1884. And three years later, we got engaged." She looks back up at him, smirk wider as she adds, "In 2014."   
  
Whatever laws he'd broken -- apart from the transitory statutes, she both didn't want to know and thought she already did. That Oedipus complex comment had rung too true for comfort. She, on the other hand, had broken the laws of time...er, repeatedly.

"As I said, Marcus doesn't know how I'm here, doesn't have the faintest idea actually because apparently he's never seen Back to the Future -- and no, I won't tell you how or more than that because it *would* put you in danger. But, Tony? I don't blame you for wanting to keep yours secret either. Growing up in the 90s...er, 1990s that is, and the 1880s but you know, wibbly wobbly -- anyway, I freaked people out. I still freak people out. I freaked you out. Didn't I? Day we met and I was telling you Olivier can be saved? Which btw, he can be, still believe that, definitely."  
  
She took another big bite of the parfait through her smirk.  
  
"That's true enough," he nodded in agreement about secret keeping mostly resulting in some pissed off individuals, just like he had told that good for nothing piece of Wolfie shit that secrets weren't keeping Stef from harm, it kept her ignorant on the fact that the association was a constant threat- okay, he momentary hate over, he was okay, he was good.  
  
And on the second point, well the only Faye Tony knew well was Daniella but yeah, she would probably have some fury she'd unleash if secrets were kept from her. Fortunately for her, she was the one keeping secrets.  
  
"That is messing with my brain, but you were born in the 90s?" He was so out of his league here, it was concerning. Out of all the magic available to the world, Tony never wondered or thought about time travel, more than a casual wish to go back in time and change something. However Rebecca did it, he hoped she kept it to herself because his brother with the ability to time travel? Shoot. Him. Now. Tony wasn't sure which one of them he meant either.  
  
"Yeah, a little. But not in the 'psycho freak oh my god get away from me!' way, it was in the 'wow that is awesomely scary I like it, hi let's be friends' way." He licked the spoon again and then snorted.  
  
"What he needs to be is whacked. Repeatedly. With sense. So he can see his evil dictator ways." Tony cleared his throat and stopped himself from saying anything else by taking another bite of the parfait. So good.  
  
"Are we, by the way? Still friends?"  
  
"I won't disagree with you but don't go signing me up for soul saving, one brooding evil dictator genius is enough for me," Rebecca says conversationally while she licks the back of her spoon and still smirks at him. At this point, as her heart was calming down again, she couldn't think what else to do but smirk. The recitation of her travels and trails through time - which okay was meant to sound a bit impressive, it was, but he was the one who'd gone and jumped her for her blood. Let her be for wanting to be impressive and scary a little bit too, okay?   
  
"Yup, 1991. So I'm either a hundred and sixty or thirty six next April -- quick, guess which one I prefer." The tip of her spoon its the side of her nose.  
  
Then she stills and softens, moving around the counter slowly, still a bit warily, but determinedly sits right next to him, holding out her unbandaged hand.  
  
"Course we are. Secrets and all. Just tell me now if there's some other part in there I should know cause apparently I married a part leprachun without being told so until after the wedding day. My poor son's ears."  
  
Oh, she teases, she jests! Even as she could see Rowland's ears glowing from here.  
  
"Fair enough," he nodded, smirking at the thought as he licked the spoon. Nope this was his own, crazy, almost impossible, messed up journey. Well, Eliza said she'd tag along for the ride, he could probably count on Nadia too, though the jury was still out on Daniella, guess he'd have to see.  
  
"And you don't look a day over 30, which is coincidentally the age I prefer my woman to be, though I'm also feeling a recent pull towards forty year olds." Made sense if he thought about it actually.  
  
Surprised that she chose to come around and sit next to him, he reached for her uninjured hand, smiling at her joke and shaking his head, "No, not part anything else. Though apparently you and your husband are part Time Lord."  
  
Bemused at that thought, she chuckles and says with a little nod, "We do have experience much sought after. Which must be why you know to say thirty's the oldest I look then."  
  
Rebecca shakes his hand up and down gently, curiously testing how strong she could feel his grip was when he wasn't even trying. Now she got it. One handed he genuinely might have choked her without even trying or looking up from her hand. While slipping her hand free now almost as a reflex, she nods with a wink.  
  
"I'm more like Clara actually, post jumping in the time vortex." Her smirk lifts again. "Though yeah, that's not bad a comparison." She goes back for the parfait and says softer, trying to calm down still, "So...hold on, can you hear my heart?"  
  
Tony nodded his head, grinning to show that yes, he had been taught well. Oh, Roxanne. What a woman. He briefly wondered what she was doing right now before his attention was brought back to her inspection of his hand and his grip. He tried not to think about how the hand had closed around her throat, and he suspected their line of thinking had been similar because a moment later she let his hand go.  
  
"I love Clara, she's so precious. Her and Twelve? Brilliant." He nodded as he took a bigger bite of the parfait and with the spoon still in his mouth he nodded.  
  
"I've learned to tune it out, otherwise it would be annoying, so it's more like tuning in."  
  
"From their first moment on screen together even!" Rebecca laughs, amused as she says it as if simple accepted fact (like she says a lot of things people shouldn't be able to say it about), "You could just tell."  
  
It was haughty -- her 'Lady Rebecca' voice, as her husband would say -- but she teases, her smirk still wide and tongue firm in her cheek. As long as you said it certainly, with an air of 'how could you not know that', then you could find someone to believe you.   
  
Clearing her throat carefully as she listens, she nods while she says, "I imagine that would get ... irritating, yes. And I appreciate your giving me privacy with it as much as possible -- I, well, I know how annoying it can be and difficult, to have the ability to just know something about someone on the street."  
  
"Of course," he nodded, agreeing with a similar smirk before shrugging and going back to the parfait. It was missing some Bailey's, definitely, but he would give it a couple of moments until he could stand up again without undergoing further pain to his boys.  
  
"Yeah, well, a heartbeat isn't that bad to listen in on," unless he was frenzied, "I usually sing along in my head to the beat." He grinned to show he was mostly joking, mostly.  
  
"Not as invasive as reading someone's mind for example. That would suck."  
  
"Would suck." Rebecca echoes with a tiny knowing glint to her eye, just for a second. "Or, say, finding out at a wedding reception the bride's gonna cheat on the groom."  
  
She finishes off the parfait and stands with pizzaz, doing a little flourish through the air to dance with the spoon (and give herself another reason to have a quick heart because him singing to it or not meant she was going to dance to it to pretend she doesn't mind her heartbeat being for public viewing).  
  
After slipping the things back into the sink (checking the bandage quick to make sure there was no chance of bleeding over) she pipes back over to him and up again.  
  
"Just one quick thing though, kay?" Thing was, this was just as much for her telling herself she was brave enough to touch him again as for his sake.   
  
Eyes wavery and steps a bit hesitant first, she steels herself and then finally resolved: arms up, hands out, pull in for a tight, warm, embrace.


	46. Forcechoke

**Audrey:** No.  
 **Tony:** Yes.  
 **Audrey:** *turns around on her heel to look at him* No. Do you want to hear it in Italian? No.  
 **Tony:** He needs to know what he's fully capable of, no restraint, none of your *wiggles his fingers at her* black magic voodoo getting in the way.  
 **Audrey:** It's dangerous, not to mention stupid, and reckless. It's a training session.  
 **Tony:** He almost killed his girlfriend-  
 **Audrey:** You're making my point for me, you know.  
 **Tony:** He needs to know how to walk the edge without leaping off.  
 **Audrey:** So your suggestion is to push him off and take off the harness?  
 **Tony:** *Pinches his fingers together* just a little nudge-  
 **Audrey:** No, we don't know what will happen to him if that much dark magic runs rampant!  
 **Tony:** I'm sorry, then why are you here again?  
 **Audrey:** To make sure he doesn't kill you. *eyebrow raises* How's that for ironic?  
 **Tony:** He won't kill me.  
 **Audrey:** You know what, I take it back. This is a -fantastic- idea. Please do attack him at full capacity, I won't interfere.  
 **Tony:** He's not going to kill me.  
 **Audrey:** Oh no, you're right, unleash him and all that raw power he doesn't know what to do with yet and he'll destroy you.  
 **Tony:** Unleash him? He's not a shadow demon!  
 **Audrey:** You're right, we know perfectly well who the demon here is-  
 **Tony:** You-  
 **Audrey:** You. You're not doing this, because I might be here to make sure he doesn't kill you, but the *main* reason is to make sure -you- don't hurt him.  
 **Tony:** I'm not going to hurt him, and he's not going to kill me.  
 **Audrey:** What's to stop -your- instinct from kicking in too, huh? An overwhelming sense of control?  
 **Tony:** I know what I'm doing.  
 **Audrey:** *scoff* Please.  
 **Tony:** Damn well more than you.  
 **Audrey:** *hands lift into the air* Fine. *she slaps them against her thigh and then gestures* Go ahead. Far as I'm concerned I can't lose.  
 **Tony:** Oh I'm dying to hear this logic.  
 **Audrey:** Excellent choice of words.  
 **Tony:** *mocking tight lipped smile*  
 **Audrey:** When Devin kills you-  
 **Tony:** Not gonna happen  
 **Audrey:** It happened in a training accident due to your incompetence.  
 **Tony:** And your refusal to intervene-  
 **Audrey:** Which, you asked of me.  
 **Tony:** because you just do everything I tell you.  
 **Audrey:** You know me, so well behaved.  
 **Tony:** *narrows eyes* Ain't you just?  
 **Audrey:** And if you move to kill him, I'm taking you down. Win win.  
 **Tony:** Yeah, until my brother and my girls tear you limb from limb. Not so win win.  
 **Audrey:** I can handle the Tony D'Grey Brigade.  
 **Tony:** ...did you mean to rhyme?  
 **Audrey:** *exasperated exhale, complete with a scowl*  
 **Tony:** Look who's showed up! *As Devin finished his lap* Go again, *uses a finger to make a circle in the air* backwards this time.  
 **Audrey:** *Puts her hand out to stop him* Aren't you going to pitch him your stupid idea?  
 **Tony:** Still working out the kinks. Well just one kink. I'll give you a hint. Her name rhymes with Godly Awful.  
 **Audrey:** That nowhere -near- rhymes.  
 **Tony:** Oh but D'Grey Brigade does?  
 **Audrey:** At least I wasn't trying, that was pathetic.  
 **Tony:** yes, well, you'd know all about that wouldn't you?  
  
 **Devin:** *They knew he could hear them, right? He was halfway around a lake, but in the presence of both of them that mark on his arm was ebony burned up his forearm from his shoulder. And then there was the fact the last thing either one of them were doing was keeping their voices down.  
Senses heightened and tense, he was beginning to think at this point this 'shadow demon' was going to cause him to run right into the lake before they stopped. Think they'd even notice?  
  
Nope, probably not.  
  
There was a reason he called them Mom and Dad at this point that had nothing to do with their supposed protective-ness over him. It was the only safe way to call them out for their old married couple act. Sure, Devin could easily discern their were serious emotional problems here underneath the bullshit but--ha, it wasn't like they told him what they were or anything. Because that wasn't important, obviously.  
  
Arching any eyebrow as he slowed his jog down hearing the 'kinks', Devin must have tried to interject three times and was on the urge of saying fuck-it and rounding the lake again when he finds them on a mutual need to breathe and seizes it.*   
  
Yeah, you're both clever, witty geniuses all right? But I'm not here for poetry lessons, all right? So maybe we leave rhyming schemes out of it.   
  
*He's breathing evenly despite his rigorous workout: a month and a half in had done something right. Now he just wants to punch Tony for other reasons.  
  
Luckily it seemed the man was inclined to helping him! Meeting Tony's eyes again he says slowly,* But if you have an idea, I want to hear it.   
  
*Nadia was ever at the forefront of his mind, and recalling the gun he'd levelled at her -- well, he was down for trying anything.*  
  
 **Tony:** I'm obviously the better genius.  
 **Audrey:** *scoff*  
 **Tony:** Wittier.  
 **Audrey:** Not in this universe.  
 **Tony:** Cleverer.  
 **Audrey:** Does the D in your last name stand for Dunce?  
 **Tony:** *snorts* like I haven't heard that before. *He hadn't but shh*  
 **Audrey:** *Pursing her lips to stop herself from commenting further, instead she turned to face Tony fully again as Devin said he was listening, eyebrows cocking as she waited too*  
 **Tony:** Fine. *he claps his hands together and then crossed them in front of his chest* I think we should take off whatever mumbo jumbo she put on your rune to keep it in check, and have you fight without it.  
 **Audrey:** *muttering* Ridiculous.  
 **Tony:** You need to know your full potential, in a safe environment.  
 **Audrey:** *scoffs*  
 **Tony:** Relatively safe.  
 **Audrey:** *Turns back to Devin* His logic is basically better you do your worst here on him than some poor unsuspecting innocent.  
 **Tony:** The rune acts up with supes, not innocents.  
 **Audrey:** The amount of -hypocrisy- in that statement alone-  
 **Tony:** Elphaba has a point though, better here than out there.  
 **Audrey:** What he fails to understand is that you're an unprecedented case.  
 **Tony:** Because there's many precedents set in the witch handbook.  
 **Audrey:** *Breathes out* when he engages you in full combat, we have no idea what that amount of unrestrained power could do to you. It could shatter the control you do have.  
 **Tony:** Might not.  
 **Audrey:** The magic could be too much for your body to handle.  
 **Tony:** Might not.  
 **Audrey:** It could kill you.  
 **Tony:** Might not.  
 **Audrey:** It could, probably will, kill him.  
 **Tony:** Definitely won't.  
 **Audrey:** If he dies in an unfortunate training accident, no one would blame you. I'll take all the blame if you want.  
 **Tony:** By blame, she means credit.  
 **Audrey:** Of course.  
 **Tony:** And by the way those are all maybes! She doesn't know what's gonna happen, because she's about as useless as a hairless cat.  
 **Audrey:** Not only does that analogy not make sense, but that's really hilarious coming from you, given that you're on a healthy diet of hairless pussy.  
 **Tony:** Finger-lickin' good.  
 **Audrey:** You're disgusting.  
 **Tony:** *whispers* I know.  
 **Audrey:** And also greatly off topic.  
 **Tony:** Like I said, she doesn't know what's gonna happen if you do this, but I know what will if you don't. You're going to snap, you're going to lash out, and it's going to be on someone you care about. *He swallows in his throat, looking to Audrey who for the first time lets her gaze drop first, for a moment before looking back.*  
  
 **Devin:** *Tony and Audrey could trade barbs all day (he learned that the first five minutes he spent with them) -- it was cutting through the Socratic wonder of their bullshit that was the real challenge. With Nadia's life in danger, with the look on her face when she spied him through the door and for an instant looked as murderous as he? You could say Devin was motivated.   
  
While he understood Audrey's hesitance, she had also shown up at his house to inform him (politely), that he was an idiot for the rune on his skin. Was he grateful for her eagerness to help him control it? Absolutely. But call him male and reckless (or giving himself the excuse to break Tony's jaw) if you wanted, he was erring in agreement with Tony here. It made no sense to him to keep this supernatural leash on all the time -- what was the point of activating it and enhancing his natural abilities if he couldn't use them to keep people safe?   
  
Rolling his eyes, he decidedly tuning out when the words 'finger-licking good' came up. Though yeah, his lips turn up for an instant. Look, he agreed with Tony here too a bit because hey--just what was the problem with enjoying licking pussy? He owes Nadia, after all. He did point a gun at her.  
  
"It's delicious, actually." Okay, maybe not so tuned out.   
  
Tuning back in slowly, he draws his wrists to his chest to check the tape he wore, tightening the strap and starting to Audrey first, shoulders hunched over in a tense stance.  
  
"Look, not to take sides Audrey, but...you're not going to be around me all the time. If I can't control the instinct without your stop gap...I mean, then all of it's pointless." Devin breathes out slowly, then looks sideways at Tony, eyebrow arching as well.  
  
"Far as I understand, though, if I go no-holds, no-bars, that includes weapons. Especially as it was that I was prepared to -shoot- Nadia." He cocks an eyebrow as he quizzes, exhale even--but hot. "You suggesting I try and shoot you to slow you down too?"  
  
Had he ever done this with Eliza's father? Somehow Devin doubts that. Even if bullets wouldn't kill a hybrid, wood bullets slowed them down incredibly -- and metal still took time to heal, even if it was faster.   
  
But then, the point they were saying was less about weapons. He could track Tony's movements no matter his speed; his strength was at this rate equal (maybe even better, how recently had Tony fed?) and Mom and Dad were both right. His rune was an enigma. It darkens on his wrist as they speak. Eyes narrow. They had no idea what else he might be able to do.  
  
The thought was thrilling, curling down his spine as he added with a short jerk of a nod to Tony. Devin's voice was wry, "I mean, I'm not saying I won't, but yeah, just pointing it out. I think...that makes sense though."   
  
He looked at Audrey sideways, his hands dropping, one twisting behind him as the other landed on his hip. Quietly, he pointed out, "I almost hurt Nadia, Audrey."   
  
Though Devin opens his mouth as if to add more, his finger has looped through the rim to yank from his jeans, his palm finds the hard flat and before he could blink, he has the gun up, leveled at Tony's knees. He shoots before he takes another breath.  
  
 **Tony:** *He laughs out suddenly, amused, pleased, and proud if his smirk didn't make that apparent*   
**Audrey:** *She rolled her eyes. Men. Throwing up her hands, she didn't even bother saying anything. The last thing she wanted to hear was a play-by-play.*  
 **Tony:** By 'not taking sides', he means I'm right and you're wrong but he's trying to placate you.  
 **Audrey:** *Pursing her lips together tight, it was all she could do to keep her from voicing out her displeasure, not that it wasn't already apparent.* If I had a little more time before you both start playing let's-see-what-happens-if then-  
 **Tony:** Look, little old lady, I know it's hard living in a loafer-  
 **Audrey:** Ex-cuse- me? *Eyebrows raised as she turns on him*  
 **Tony:** -You're excused- and we understand you have other priorities but if we wait on you to find -time- we'll be out of it.  
 **Audrey:** I have time right now to kick your ass without lifting a finger, long before Devin even blinks.  
 **Tony:** *smirks, shrugging briefly and turning to said pupil, he nods again* Yep, you can definitely try.  
 **Audrey:** *Emphasis on the try, that was obvious. Scoffing again, she shook her head, unable to help herself from thinking that this setting Devin loose on Tony was starting to look like more and more of a good idea. She looked back to him, he was determined and his reason was valid and easy enough to know without him stating it aloud, which he did anyways.*  
 **Tony:** *Shit. Once he realized what Devin was doing he had maybe half a moment to move. Managing to keep his knee from shattering with a direct hit, he didn't manage to avoid it completely. The bullet grazed, maybe a little more than graze actually as it tore right through his pants scraping some skin and muscle with it. Mother-fucker-, oww. He had dived away and now as he rolled up from the ground, putting weight on that leg was painful but not impossible; he was still slow. First things first- that gun had to go.  
  
Taking out a knife, he threw it at Devin and immediately moved in, knowing when he ducked or evaded (wait did he manage to catch it?), he'd have an opportunity. Grabbing his wrist, he twisted it and pulled down as his other arm went right above his elbow and pushed up, the fingers lost their grip around the gun immediately. Tony grabbed it then and the threw it as far away as possible. He wasn't dying because of something so mediocre as a gunshot wound. Well he wasn't dying at all today but safety first.*  
  
 **Devin:** *If Audrey had done anything to release the 'shadow demon' (was there a reason they called it that?), he couldn't tell. His vision narrow with predatory instinct, before he releases the second shot his off-hand lifts to catch a hilt. It was instant. Thought drags behind needs two fold: to survive, and to kill. Weighted down by the blade and gripping instinctively -- fuck, Tony was still too fast, even shot.   
  
(But, Devin will consider later, they aren't called 'supernatural' because they had a paintes S on their chest.)  
  
The sight of splattering blood and bone grits his teeth and turns his own red-hot, rushing through veins choking for oxygen and flooding with adrenaline. Throat closing and nostrils flaring, even as the gun is yanked from his right hand, his left clutches the knife he was given and slashes diagonal across the oncoming steel chest of --   
  
\-- well, he forgets, it's not important who it is; what does matter is they had eyes black and red like a demon's and purple veins appearing around their eyes, what matters is the paralyzing thought: this devil wants him dead.   
  
Spitting as the blade meets skin, he takes the flash of a moment to take a bruised wrist back and back up. Closed quarters was deadly; he wasn't strong enough (the devil wasn't weakened enough). Too close too long, and he'd die. He jerks the knife free; a flick of his wrist juts it aimed at the knee already bleeding.   
  
Not counting on it making contact, his own knee he brings up to the devil's solar plexus; fuck, he really has to do something about the fact he might as well have a truck hitting him square; his head jerks down to avoid a punch, then left to avoid the grab. Time was slowing, gaze tracking movements that were belied by the devil's eyes and giving him maybe half a second, three-quarters of a second to move.   
  
Breath heaving in his ears, he shuffles; the dirt and brambles beneath playing games of their own to trip their scuffle. If Devin had the time to look at his wrist, he'd see the mark had stopped growing, a twisted, gnarled design of lines like vines and as dark as the devil's eyes.   
  
It seemed to occur to him extraordinarily lately considering their heavy breathing that cutting that off would slow his devil down; give him time, maybe, to retrieve his gun. Fingers stretch to clutch the throat but miss. He clenches them on emptiness anyway, and knows it's working, because the air was thinning for him too.   
  
**Audrey:** *The shot that rang out startled Audrey enough for her to immediately back away. She immediately hated this already, despite the fact there was sweet satisfaction in watching Tony get shot. Even still, she took off the safety, of sorts, with a simple mutter of a spell. She worried more about what Tony would do to retaliate.  
  
For now, she focused on the magic of the mark. Audrey was connected to it, because the same kind of magic that powered his mark flowed through Audrey's veins. It was why Devin's abilities didn't zero in on her as a potential threat, the same of other hunters; the mark wasn't designed to kill their own kind.  
  
Unstoppered, Devin's reflexes were sharper than ever before. He caught a knife aimed right at his chest, slashed down in another swift movement, her eyes trying to follow the quick blur of movement between the two of them as she planted her feet further into the ground to refrain from interfering*  
 **Tony:** *A hiss left his mouth as metal sliced across his chest, ripping his shirt and painting skin in his own blood. Shallow enough to ignore, nevertheless the little witch had been right (fuck), he could feel his own instinct starting to give in; he knew his eyes had transformed he had very little control of that.  
  
Tony was going to be at a disadvantage here for as long as he fought the instinct, and he would, because Devin was fighting to kill him but Tony didn't want to kill the boy. As long as he only fought to preserve his life, rather than end Devin's, he would have an advantage. Not to mention the fact his leg. was. injured.  
  
He moved out of the way as the knife was aimed at his injured knee, the movement put him right in the line of Devin's kick. Stumbling back with a growl, he aimed a punch, tried to reach for his shoulders and missed.  
  
Backing away again, to avoid Devin's lunge at his throat, he suddenly slowed as the air thinned. He breathed in more heavily, but he only got in less air. Eyes widening in surprise, over Devin's shoulder, Audrey's own expression showed she was just as surprised as he. Reacting immediately, he barreled into Devin to throw him over his shoulders then turned around quickly, knowing better than to give someone his back.*  
  
 **Devin:** *Unsure what his closed hand was doing, fingers scratching at his wrist in jerks, he breathes harsh, but steady. He wasn't even sure if he was fighting to stop himself or keep it steady--and he hadn't figured it out when all the wind remaining knocks out, sticks and rocks and hard ground rising up to meet him. Rolling over instinctively, survival overruling 'kill'. He gets a glimpse of Tony's mouth and right shoulder before the sky overhead. Then he exhales, air rushing back in; whatever ability it was released with the harsh reality of needing to breathe.  
  
Groaning, he grunts out,* G'roff, *As if that was a full sentence, one fist pushing Tony's shoulder, the other pushing at his waist.* Mate, get off, I yield, seriously--   
  
*Granted, he said that as he looks up at the sky; he growled as he sees the red eyes in front of him again and clenches down hard on his back teeth. Beginning a basic move to wiggle free (his knee lifts, the right leg rolls out as a triangle, he lifts a hand hard to Tony's shoulder and then shoves down), he sits up coughing, one hand on his throat rubbing back and forth. The other is open palm to ward off. Blood on his lip, he was pretty sure he had a concussion from the hazy, spinny world and nausea already building. Battering it down with another cough, he grunts,* Your leg--sorry--*but has nothing to finish it with, shaking his head again. Truth was he was still tense, knowing however shallow the wounds on them both, blood was on his face and chest and everywhere in Tony's sights.*  
  
 **Tony:** *Backing off as he was pushed off, he limped back with a hiss and inhaled a fresh gulp of air, coughing a little as it rushed in quicker than he expected. Teeth gritting, his anger was still seething and he turned back to face Devin, his eyes still red and black. The gaze no longer paid attention to the boy but the blood he was painted in. He took a step forward-*  
 **Audrey:** Enough. *She steps in front of him and puts her hands on his chest to keep him from moving forward.* You're done. Hey! *She called more abruptly, to get his attention, his eyes suddenly trained on hers. For a moment she couldn't breathe, a sudden fear overtaking her before she straightened further and repeated herself, pushing a bottle of water and a towel into his hands* You're done.  
 **Tony:** *With teeth still gritted he pulls back again, turning around and uncapping the sports bottle before chugging the water down and fighting to bring down his heartbeat and breathing long enough for his eyes to return to normal. As the adrenaline subsided, the pain started again.* Porca puttana! Fuck!  
 **Audrey:** *She breathed too, watching him as he walked(/limped) his way back to one of the benches out here, ignoring both of them for the moment as he started wiping the blood off him. Turning back to Devin, she asked* You okay?   
  
**Devin:** *Maybe it was in poor taste (maybe?), but after launching to his feet with cold certainty of loosing another knife into Tony's throat if he did not back off Audrey--he couldn't help a smirk at the sudden bilingual curses. Good, he thinks, pleased and proud.   
  
Then he doubles over ready to heave his stomach empty, bared only by the staunch need for air. Rubbing off his forehead again, the shot still echoing in his ear, he spits blood off his lip and sits back down, right on the dirt. It seemed best to him he keep at least some distance.  
  
After a moment of downing the water bottle Audrey offers him and running the towel across his neck, his smirk is back and eyes light once more. They lighten more when he recognizes the still-dark rune: Audrey hadn't put the safety back on.*  
  
Yeah, just--winded. Maybe concussed. *Devin throws that off with a shoulder shrug. The towel whips up in the wind, but he chuckles.* Well Sensei, I didn't kill you, so--success? No?   
  
**Audrey:** *She exhales, her shoulders dropping as her concern turned to annoyance as Devin shrugged off a possible concussion. Oh no, let Nadia deal with that hot mess.*  
 **Tony:** *Taking off his ruined shirt to wrap it above his knee to slow the bleeding, (you would think after years he would be better at healing) he breaths through his mouth. Looking up at Devin's smug words, he smirks and then gives him the middle finger*  
 **Audrey:** *She shakes her head, in immediate disapproval, her scowl returning.* Remember how I said this was a stupid idea?  
 **Tony:** Shut up.  
 **Audrey:** I warned you. *Her eyes narrow as she looks at his leg* Do you heal naturally?  
 **Tony:** I've never needed to regrow skin and muscle before. *He looks back to Devin after he speaks* we're not putting the safety back on.  
 **Audrey:** I take it back, -that- is stupid.  
 **Tony:** He didn't need it to snap out.  
 **Audrey:** No, he just needed  to be tackled, flipped, and thrown to the ground.  
 **Tony:** Can we talk about it after you heal my knee?  
 **Audrey:** *eyebrows raise* Did -you- hit your head?  
 **Tony:** Yeah you're right, don't come any closer.  
 **Audrey:** I'm sorry, did you just admit I'm right?  
 **Tony:** Did you just apologize?  
 **Audrey:** Don't get snappy just because you got the shit kicked out of you.  
 **Tony:** And slashed and shot- also, what, the actual, fuck did you do with your hand? I've been choked before *he glared at Audrey* but it wasn't that, you-  
 **Audrey:** *She turned back to Devin too* -thinned out the air. Around me too, I felt it. Easy 15 meter radius. Were you affected?  
  
 **Devin:** *The smirk widens with pride as he's flicked off and with the question, not that he had a clue. Soothing his throat with another gulp of water before he dares speak again, he nods absently. Once he notices his nose bleeding, he tilts his head back skywards, letting gravity and magic fix it while he responds, almost sheepish.* Wish I could say I meant to do it. Well I did. Only I missed your throat. And--  
  
*There; nose bleed stopped. No problem. Except for the world still spinning, but, technicalities. Lowering his head again he exhales as he meets Audrey's gaze,* Yeah, kind of. I mean not--I could still breathe, just...slowly? I don't really know--it seems a blur to me now.   
  
*All of it was, actually--fuck, had he really shot Tony? And he hit him! Actually, maybe he was a little too proud of that...  
  
Standing up, and approaching a little bit carefully, he stops closer to Audrey as he surveys the wound with eyes wide (not to mention in the grey ground and freezing weather, Tony was unaffected to it).* ...Fuck. I'd say sorry..., but that was kind of what I was supposed to do... right? *He smirks still, but his eyes are wide and questioning anyway, voice softer. It might be training, but...that wound was real.*  
  
 **Audrey:** You have to find a way to practice that.  
 **Tony:** -Practice- that?! You want him to get better at that?  
 **Audrey:** It wouldn't work against vampires, they don't need to breathe, but if you're surrounded that could be a huge and invaluable part of your arsenal. If you could find a way to control it, and make  it so that you're at the eye of the storm, of sorts, unaffected-  
 **Tony:** How about no?  
 **Audrey:** You're training him to be a killer-  
 **Tony:** I'm teaching him how to protect himself and the people he cares about-  
 **Audrey:** -Shooting- you was about protecting himself?! His instinct is to kill-  
 **Tony:** And protect!  
 **Audrey:** And you're focusing on the kill. Now, thinning out the air when he's surrounded, outnumbered, and being able to incapacitate multiple opponents at once-  
 **Tony:** Kill more than one at once, how perfect-  
 **Audrey:** Incapacitate! Devin *she turns to him again* Every life matters.  
 **Tony:** *Well, ouch. That was half directed at him wasn't it?*  
 **Audrey:** you can't ignore the value of one.  
 **Tony:** Technically, vampires are dead.  
 **Audrey:** Real progressive of you, Tony, tell me, how exactly does your girlfriend feel about being thought of as a corpse?  
 **Tony:** You know- *he tries to stand, forgetting his right leg was injured and then just sits back down with a hiss*  
 **Audrey:** I'm just saying, Devin, you can't lose sight of why you chose this to begin with, and it wasn't about killing supernatural creatures, no matter if that ended up being necessary. Because sometimes, it isn't. But the hunter's spell, it's potent and addictive, seductive. It's an archaic spell, made with archaic mindsets, specifically designed to make every killing easier than the last in your mind.  
 **Tony:** Claude is not like that.  
 **Audrey:** Claude's rune is slightly different, modified by hunters as the years went by. And even still, every case is different.  
 **Tony:** Where is this all again in the witchy handbook?  
 **Audrey:** *ignoring him* And without that safety on the rune, you could-  
 **Tony:** Be the new Jack the Ripper.  
 **Audrey:** *exhales*   
**Tony:** Ooh, or Van Helsing. In the Hugh Jackman movie. Mediocre movie, Kate Beckinsale as a vampire hunter though, so hot, hotter than her as an actual vampire-  
 **Audrey:** *Where was that gun? Maybe she should shoot out his other knee to make him shut up.* You got to do something about that leg.  
 **Tony:** Doing so would require looking down, and I might go apeshit again, which would kickstart his apeshitness.   
**Audrey:** Well, you better call in one of your spice girls or something.  
 **Tony:** Yeah yeah *he waves off Devin's not apology, shaking his head at his smug face, and Audrey's who was enjoying it too.* You did good. Too good. Fuck you. *He looks back at the manor, knowing the moment he entered it the blood was going to be sniffed out immediately; he'd take his chances with the two people that most wanted him dead right now.* Audrey-  
 **Audrey:** *she smirks* ask me nicely, with a please.  
 **Tony:** *scoffs*  
 **Audrey:** I know what you're gonna not-ask, so ask me nicely. Make it real humiliating.  
 **Tony:** I think I'd rather cut my leg off actually.  
  
 **Devin:** *Wasn't Audrey the one who just had been advocating safety over raw experimentation? A little thrown by the suggestion, smile crawling across his lips anyway, he nods once. It was a waste of breath to try interrupt the two of them. Gunshot wound and no ability to breathe, but hey, don't let that stop their banter, heaven forbid!   
  
Okay, he was listening hard to every word, fine. They might be mid-argument, as was their natural state (though what they were truly arguing about, he has no idea) -- but the conflict they illustrate in sharp barbs and glares was one central to his every waking moment. It was only a matter of time before it invaded his dreams, too.   
  
They both were right, in his mind. Maybe the argument was the point? He had activated the mark to learn to protect his family, his loved ones, himself. More than that, as he'd mentioned to Tony, he was bloody sick of being treated like humanity was a weakness.   
  
And yes, Tony was right here too, even though he agrees with Audrey's proposition this time. Except for...well.   
  
Cutting in, his palm strikes at his thigh,* I'm not training to be a killer -- I am, a killer. I may have only taken one life, and half with Nadia, but that's pretty much how this rune works anyways, right?"  
  
His voice was muted in the wind as he makes himself stare -- hard -- at the drying blood on Tony's chest, the squirting wound beneath a T-shirt tourniquet. Dry swallowing, he jerks his head back up after a few seconds and then walks until he's on the end of Tony's bench.   
  
Closer, there was a growing stench to the wound that make him bite his tongue, but he makes himself sit down anyway. He had to get used to being around supernaturals without wanting to tear them to shreds -- Tony was proof of it, bleeding as he spoke.   
  
Eyes clear, he says calmly to them both,* I do know why I'm doing this. And that every life matters. That's why I'm learning to do this, It's too damn likely that supernatural abilities will turn into prerequisites for existence.   
  
*Cocking an eyebrow, he gestures at Tony's wound again and says with a small smirk,* But I should point out that not listening to Audrey has meant bad things so far, you know.   
  
*He could see the slash on Tony's chest beginning to knit, but it wasn't likely that even if the bullet wound would eventually heal itself it would be fast enough to stop him from - as he put it - 'went apeshit.'* Suck it up, Sensei. I still need you here.   
  
**Audrey:** *sighs* Devin-  
 **Tony:** There's a difference between a man who has killed and a killer, Dev. *eyebrows raised* Just saying.  
 **Audrey:** *Oddly enough, she found herself agreeing with him, even if Antonio D'Grey was the least qualified person to say that aloud. Shaking her head, she remained wary as Devin went to sit down close to Tony.*  
 **Tony:** *Looking sideways now as he followed Dev's movements until he was sitting down, he found himself nodding once to show he was listening. Honestly, that statement of finding supernatural abilities was already too true for comfort.*  
 **Audrey:** *He said that now, Audrey wanted to protest* Calm and in his right mind, but it would be far more difficult to think the same in the middle of fighting. Him fighting with the restraint on his mark, for now at least, would give some time for those thoughts to become ingrained so that when he does have to use his full potential, his own will could be stronger than the pull of the hunter's spell.*  
 **Tony:** Listening to Audrey is number one in my list of things I hate to do.  
 **Audrey:** Funny, I thought that slot was reserved for 'being decent'.  
 **Tony:** Number two is looking at Audrey, period.  
 **Audrey:** *her eyebrows rise as she crosses her arms, waiting*  
 **Tony:** *Chewing on his tongue, he exhales as he looks up at the sky and then gives in* Fine, Audrey, help me.  
 **Audrey:** No.  
 **Tony:** Oh come on!  
 **Audrey:** You can do a lot better than that.  
 **Tony:** *eyes narrow*  
 **Audrey:** Up-pub *shakes her finger* that's not the face of someone who wants my help.  
 **Tony:** You're right, it's the face of someone being coerced.  
 **Audrey:** And this is the face of someone who has no obligation to help you, saying she will if you ask nicely.  
 **Tony:** Please.  
 **Audrey:** Not convinced.  
 **Tony:** Damnit, Audrey, I'm going to wring your little neck-  
 **Audrey:** Good luck catching me on that leg, killer.  
 **Tony:** Preeeeetty please. *he exhales through his nose* I need your help. Be the better man.  
 **Audrey:** Woman.  
 **Tony:** Oh, sorry, I got distracted by your massive balls bulging through your jeans.  
 **Audrey:** That's my cock.  
 **Tony:** Charming.  
 **Audrey:** Your leg could have been healed already if you had already asked me sincerely to help you.  
 **Tony:** Okay so which one am I supposed to do, nicely or sincerely? Because I can't do both.  
 **Audrey:** Given the fact that after I help you I will start hating myself, and you even more, the least you can do is not be yourself.  
 **Tony:** *Fixing up your cousin's killer did seem to be cause for a good amount of self-hatred actually, yeah, that he could recognize. Sighing, he licked his lips and looked back at her, the sting at his knee backing him up by making him appear pained (he wasn't actually pained).* Audrey, please.  
 **Audrey:** *gauging and weighing his words in her mind, she finally gives in and moves forward as well, crouching down to examine his injured leg.*  
 **Tony:** The moment your knees touch the ground I'm making an inappropriate commen- oww! Son of a- argh!  
 **Audrey:** *She takes her finger back after digging it in his wound* Oh, looks like the bullet went clean through after all. *turning to Devin, she asked after quickly looking around* Could you bring me that potted hellebore please?  
 **Tony:** *grumbling* what the hell do you know about bullet wounds anyways?  
 **Audrey:** More than you, but this isn't wound specific.  
 **Tony:** ...meaning?   
  
**Devin:** *There was a difference? He who had grown up loving semantics and subtle nuance, Devin almost asked them to elaborate, please. Then he realizes: that would be pathetic. And he'd already gone and said 'I need you (here)', so he was just shutting up now.   
  
Honestly, he wants to snort when Audrey says no. The first time. By the ten dozenth time he was pretty sure -he- was ready to strangle both of them (damn was it a good thing that gun was still laying in the grass somewhere), and edges down on the bench just in case.  
  
Eying him sideways as she finally bends and stuck between laughter and wincing at the hiss-and-shriek, Devin settles for what he hopes is 'encouraging smile!'   
  
Bracing himself, he stands abruptly when asked and nods, darting to Audrey's bag and starting to rifle through. It was messy and rag-tag, but he thought both were signs of 'much-loved.'   
  
Coming back with it, he hands it to her while breathing, in and out, careful to focus on her lest he shoot Tony's other knee. His fingers crawl at the mark, itching as he remarks lighter, desperate for something else to focus on,* So, what is the rune like with Claude, then? *He was a bit hesitant.* I mean, he must have met Stefanie and they didn't go 'apeshit', right?   
  
**Audrey:** *Taking the pot from Devin, she sets it down next to her.*  
 **Tony:** Isn't hellebore toxic?  
 **Audrey:** Mmh.  
 **Tony:** You've done healing magic before right?  
 **Audrey:** *rolling up his pant leg* Witches used hellebore in medieval times in salves all the time.  
 **Tony:** Unless you're telling me you're a thousand years old and that was you-  
 **Audrey:** My magic is different. *She applies the leaves directly over Tony's wound, the blood not bothering her*  
 **Tony:** *Hissing, he answers* Claude has a natural distrust of supernatural creatures, yes, but it's more of a warning bell.  
 **Audrey:** *Once the leaves were absorbed into his bloodstream, she looked around again. They were still in winter, most vegetation was dead. Seeing a few decorative bushes and flowers by the windows of the manor, she fixated on those instead and then began.*  
 **Tony:**   But no, he actually hasn't met Stefanie, officially, yet. Don't think. Why do you say must? *Hissing suddenly as his leg started burning, he looked down, the pain enough to distract him from the back his blood was all over Audrey's hand but not from the fact she wasn't looking at his leg* what the fuck are you- *he gritted his teeth and couldn't bother finishing his thought when his muscle started mending itself, the singed skin regrowing until his knee was almost as good as new. A small scar was still there, but that would heal naturally.*  
 **Audrey:** *She looked back at his leg and then nodded, taking the towel from him to wipe her own hands* Done.  
  
 **Devin:** *Well, he had gotten that feeling, yes. It was hard to ignore the very obvious stated fact that Claude was - at best? - uncomfortable with Tony's brother. That was all right with Devin (that was the most favorable way to put his own feelings); he was surprised he'd never met Stefanie. Yes, Audrey calling him out for saying 'his girlfriend was a corpse' was inaccurate. They weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, but they were clearly sleeping together, and Claude...well. His protective-side with Tony was best illustrated by Tony's own joking call to the man as "Daaaaaad."* Oh. Becau--  
  
*Nope, he was cut off too. Exhaling and turning around for a moment as Audrey works, Devin reaches for the water bottle again. Gulping it down, his eyes struck watching the disintegrating flowers, looks back curious...amazed, actually.* What did you -- do?    
  
*Lynn had been telling him for ages that he overlooked herbs and plants. In his defense, Lynn said -every-thing as if it was a foregone conclusion, definitely true, yes, no take backs. This time though...she appeared right. Don't tell her.   
  
Coughing again as he finishes off the bottle again, he focuses on it to refill before he returns to answer Tony's question.* And oh, yeah, because -- well, never mind, of course you haven't introduced her to your Dad yet. You should, though. Trust someone who made the mistake of making it look like I didn't respect a girl because I was scared of disapproval.  
  
*That was the issue here, right? Tony didn't think Claude would approve of him sleeping with a vampire?*  
  
 **Audrey:** *Capping the hellebore after she finished wiping her hands on the towel, and then making that towel disappear (disintegrate rather) to prevent any 'apeshit' from happening, she looks up at the question, answering* In order to heal someone, I have to take it away from something else. Plants work, the hellebore acts as a bonding agent for the magic, focusing the healing on the area where it was applied.*  
 **Tony:** *Still staring, eyes now narrowing* So you take away life force and put it in something else.  
 **Audrey:** No, but sure if that's how you can understand it.  
 **Tony:** You couldn't heal me -normally-?!  
 **Audrey:** *standing up, replying coolly* You're welcome. *walking back to her bag*  
 **Tony:** *grumbles out a barely audible or intelligible thank you as he pulls his pant leg down and unties the shirt from around his leg* Disapproval? *he looks back to Devin* That's not why I haven't introduced them yet. Half of the time I'm so mad at her -I- don't even want to see her face.  
 **Audrey:** *snorts, zipping up her bag and calling back* Aren't you romantic?  
 **Tony:** I am. *smiles*  
 **Audrey:** *rolls her eyes and then puts the bag over her shoulder* I'm gonna go out on a limb and say training's done for today?  
 **Tony:** *nodding, immediately. He could do just fine without another bullet to the knee.  
 **Devin:** *Condescending or not (hint, it was), Devin agreed this time that Audrey's explanation had been dramatically simplified. Look, he wasn't going to miss out on their nuanced dialogue twice in the same conversation. Especially when you considered the obvious fact they kept their personal past from him.  
  
Devin was only minutely bothered by this. After all, he wasn't itching to come clean to them that he once craved nothing more than Sam's approval. Besides! That was simplistic as well! It had a lot more to do with craving respect than affection -- and with wanting to sate his curiosity about (so called) darker branches of magic. Which...yeah, kind of brought them full circle to the rune.   
  
So at Audrey's words, he says,* That is healing normally. Only instead of drawing the energy from yourself, debilitating and draining your resources, you drew from the plants. Right?   
  
*Curiousity only growing, Devin wants to growl at Audrey clearly packing up. They both did this. Training they could barely tolerate the other; talking afterwards? Ha! It was just another reason for his Mom-and-Dad nicknames: they'd fuck and spar, but their pillow talk sucked.  
  
Sighing, he nods too, defeated when they had agreed so quickly.* Yeah, definitely. For now. I'll text you later if the safety off causes a problem--or if it's fine. *He smiles, slightly, adding,* Thanks, Audrey.  
  
*Then he rounds on Tony with an eyebrow arch, smirk wider,* And my mistake then, never mind. So it's not disapproval, it's fear you'd send the message you're more serious than your comfortable being. Got it.   
  
*Yeah, he only got it as much as he ever got Alcott and Hols  'I don't want to date her I just want to fuck her and spend lots of time with her and we won't fuck anyone else but no we're not dating REALLY', but whatever.* Though...yeah, your reasons are pretty legitimate to hate her too. I suspect anyway.  'She might eat me' is a bit bigger than 'She beat me in sports.'  
  
 **Audrey:** *She looked up as Devin explained better and then nodded with a smile* Right. I can't drain from myself for healing magic I just wasn't...born for it, I guess.  
 **Tony:** That makes absolutely no sense to me, but I'm a simpleton *he slaps his thighs* Si.  
 **Audrey:** You said it, not me. *Then she smiles again at Devin and then nods* Good, take it easy okay? *she looks at her wristwatch* I've got a double shift in an hour but if there's any trouble I can come quick enough.  
 **Tony:** You know, making yourself that easily available to a taken man is just sad.  
 **Audrey:** About as sad as you hitting on a taken straight man. *her eyebrows rise*  
 **Tony:** *Touche. Turning his head, his eyebrows raising as Devin's all knowing assumption and then scoffed* I'm not uncomfortable. The moment she stops fucking her ex and using me as a feed-and-fuck truck, using me in general, then we'll see about meeting the parents.  
 **Audrey:** ...Yeah, I really don't want to be here anymore. Bye, Dev.  
 **Tony:** Bye shrew.  
  
 **Devin:** Got it. *The only way he was calling her away from a double shift was if he or another's life hung on it. But his smirk didn't let that on. (He was too busy rolling his eyes at the idea either of them were hitting on him.)* Bye, Audrey.  
  
*Besides, maybe he'd chill here first; avoid temptations and ensure, by the sound of things, that Stefanie didn't eat Tony with that wound up at the house. Waiting until they were alone again, he chuckles under his breath, even wide-eyed at the screen.* Or those issues too, sure, yeah.   
  
*The bitter way Tony scoffs out 'fucking her ex' made Devin absolutely positive he wanted to be exclusive, but the latter...kind of was directly contradictory. He blinks, trying to understand, * Mate, if said feed-and-fuck isn't enjoyable...I mean, I'm just trying to understand here-- *Devin's lips quirked up.* You do remember your immediate pointing out of a hundred other ways to satisfy, yeah? So. Do you enjoy her feeding or not?   
  
**Tony:** It's something I'm getting used to and it's not as unpleasant as the beginning but that's not the point. The point, young one, is that I spent this quarter of a century I've been on this earth convinced that vampires are evil, that drinking human blood is perverse and wrong, and that there are an immeasurable amount of reasons why I'm a freak of nature. Now, I'm a stubborn bastard, I've been unmoveable about that. Now it's all gone topsy turvy, basically, and I've somehow surrounded myself with all these people telling me 'no Tony, you're wrong'. And in order to keep these people in my life, Stefanie and Olivier mainly, then I can't think like that anymore.  
  
The kicker is that there is no possible way that I'm going to stop thinking how I do. I'll bury my ego down enough to give it a shot, and I have, but in the end I will never be that man that's okay with a person willingly choosing to be a vampire, the fact that I need human blood will always disgust me and that's just it.  
  
And I'm angry because why should I be the one to change? I was a pretty fucking awesome person before I started trying to 'accept myself', now I'm a shithead, and a serial killer, living exactly how I swore I never would. So, in the interest of not expanding the lie my life's become, I'm postponing any family reunions.  
  
*Bringing his hand up, he taps Devin's knee twice* Nice talking, Dev. Same time next week? Great. Get out of not-my-house.  
  
 **Devin:** *That...was a hell of a lot of information buried in a lot of resentment, anger and hopelessness. Devin stayed still, listening and absorbing as fast as humanly possible considering the info-dump. It was enough to make him forget his buried scoff at the words 'young one'--for now, anyway.   
  
(It still throws him to hear D'Grey referred to as Olivier. Devin honestly isn't sure he wants to. "D'Grey", that was a name that went with the mystery and arrogant prestige and hint of violence in the bastard's smug smirk -- Olivier...sounded just like an Italian bloke.)  
  
Eyebrows wrinkling as his knee is patted, he snorts again, leaning away. Otherwise he didn't move.* Yeah, well I can see why you don't want Claude to meet her, then.  
  
*He didn't say anything else at first, just twisted on the bench and held out his hand. Focusing hard on the bench across the way, his jacket eventually leaps up and into it. Digging into the leather, he fishes out the flask.* I know you said no alcohol, Sensei -- but this occasion seems to call for Old Ogden.   
  
*He took a swig first, then sheepishly tosses it at Tony. Smirk small, he adds with a shrug,* And for what it's worth, I don't think you're wrong. Drinking human blood does look...*Devin pulls a face,* disgusting.    
  
 **Tony:** *He chuckles in spite of himself, in spite of everything really, and then takes the flask with a silent thank you before taking a swig* Drinks and no unsolicited advice? Where have you been all my life? *Well, a good decade of it he hadn't been born yet. That was a little odd to think about actually. And as far as drinking blood went, yeah...but he had already tried to explain that and there was no way to say it to a 'normal' person (Devin was right, theirs was a messed up world they lived in if he was considered normal) without creeping them out.* Yep. *He handed Dev back his flask and exhaled, lying back in the bench again, having no intention of moving despite the growing hour and the fact he was shirtless.*  
  
Good job, by the way. That was seriously badass. And despite the little witch's concerns, I think you'll do better without the safety as long as we're careful. Otherwise, her magical help could become a crutch. *He gasps as if suddenly arriving at a conclusion* Maybe that's her plan all along! Lure you into her dark trappings.   
  
**Devin:** Come on mate, I thought we agreed you'd stop hitting on me? *Quickly, he lifts his hand with his words and then just casts it off, smirking through the muttered 'fuck it.' Besides, he probably owed Tony that much. He had shot him.  
  
The information still was getting filed away. Devin used to be really excellent at being the quiet eavesdropper in the room; he wonders briefly when he started prying so vocally and was just relieved he cut off. Tony didn't owe him anything. Here he was trying to keep him from killing his friends in a blind rage--and really, Tony doesn't owe him even that much.  
  
A small, proud smile crossed his lips at the compliment. Only to roll his eyes and reach for the flask, tugging it free as he laughs.* Yeah, I think you figured it out! Lure me away from my sweet and pure, good woman -- who, *pride only going as he widens his smirk,* you know, only cut a dick's eye out with a pen knife.   
  
*He doesn't speak again until he's gulped another swig of fire, coughs once and resumes smirking.* One your brother gave her, btw. *That might have been a verbal middle finger. Might have been a thank-you. Devin wasn't sure of anything but the fact that double-entendres were guaranteed on these expansive manor grounds.*  
  
But thanks. I hope so. I mean, if I was gonna be a ticking time bomb, *which he did feel like,* did it have to be around the girl I love? Who I can't even sleep with because of this,* he gestures flamboyant at his mark,* bloody thing?  
  
*Passing the flask back, he pauses as he hears himself. His smirk reappears in a flash.* Pun not intended.   
  
**Tony:** I never agreed to that ridiculous notion, bambino. *He shook his head, smirk briefly on his face before remembering that mark was currently without restraint and maybe it was best not to anger him without reason.  
  
Nodding along as Devin went along with his realization, he couldn't help a snort and then a chortle as he recounted again the deadliness of his girlfriend. That was insane, seriously. No one that cute should be that dangerous. He understood of course -hot- and dangerous but fluffy adorable and fatal? Like a panda bear.* Hmm, I think I just found a nickname for your girlfriend.  
  
He only gave her that because she tried to sneak out a butter knife. So he was doing some good...kind of...in his own way. *Give a woman her enemies' corpse, they'll be safe for a day, but teach a woman to make her own...corpses...yeah, that was, no, he was stopping.*   
  
Haha. Well you know, you guys could always explore open relationships. Monogamy is not the human way, that is a social construct. *But if you listened to Tony, most things were social construct. And social constructs were good most of the time! Not here.* But I'll back away with my unsolicited advice too. *He smirks* Although from the sound of it earlier, you seem to be getting creative.  
  
 **Devin:** A nickname? *Curious. Personally he was a big fan of Irene's 'tiny tan Spanish goddess', but she'd always been Nadia to him. That wasn't mean to be diminutive though. The word 'Nadia' sometimes seemed to have become his word for 'everything that's good in this universe.'  
  
Context, see, it's important! Delighted and letting out half a surprised chuckle, he remarks,* She didn't tell me that part...that's good. And yeah...yeah I know he was trying.   
  
*Devin shrugs,* I also know he jacked adrenaline into my IV to ensure I woke up in time for that blasted Gala. Doesn't mean he might not have killed me trying, you know, but I'm grateful. Oh, and--sure she wasn't trying to use that butter knife to stab your brother? Not that, apparently, that would kill either of you but...  
  
*He shrugs it off; he was mostly teasing. Ignore the fact Nadia -had- jammed silver into Alcott's stomach. It wasn't like he wasn't proclaiming the scar sexy for Hols anyway.  
  
Speaking of sex. Smirk lifting, he disregards any mention of polygamy for the useless air it was to focus on the compliment.* Yeah, well. Like you said, there's lots of ways to be satisfied... *That was not a pink blush creeping up his cheeks, it wasn't, nope. The rune was kicking in to keep him warm in the late afternoon air.   
  
Tilting his head, he adds mildly,* But since you did offer unsolicited advice and all, just saying? Just because I think it looks disgusting -- and, you know, I have this mark that makes me want to kill you -- doesn't mean I was saying *you* are. I mean, you're disgusting for other reasons of course, *that was light, a tease and playful even though his words were sincere,* but, I'm just saying. Serial killer you might be, but. I didn't like some things about myself...for a while, and trust me mate, if I hadn't had Nadia...I'd have been pretty fucked.   
  
Actually no, I'd have been fucked, and it wouldn't have had anything pretty about it. But my point is...accepting that I had darker impulses the first time around didn't mean I was incapable of changing to be someone I did like. So hopefully I can do that again. And, you know, find a way to be able to have sex.  
  
 **Tony:** Panda. *He declares with a simple beam on his face* From now on she is Panda. Don't spoil it though, I want to be there when she first hears it. *He nodded and then his movement slowed as his agreement with his brother's actions became more and more reluctant. His entire mental response could be summed up with '.....yeaaaaah, but', only Tony didn't have any other buts to offer.*  
  
Technically we don't know what will kill us, just know that we're a little more durable than most humans. But I'm pretty sure if you put a bullet through my brain, snapped my neck, bled me to death, I would die. Personally, I think it would be poetic, not to mention much more desirable, to die like a human instead of a vamp.  
  
*Throwing his head back and groaning as the advice comes anyways, he shakes his head. He really needed to find someone he could share his problems with that a) wouldn't judge him b) wouldn't tear down his thoughts and feelings point by point and c) wouldn't offer advice. He didn't want advice! If he wanted advice, he'd ask for it. He didn't want people empathizing! Or even sympathizing! He just wanted someone to listen. Listen, without being so wrapped up in how his situation was vaguely similar to what they're going/went through that one time in band camp and hey this is how I got through it, so you should do it too!  
  
He just wanted someone to listen, get through his monologues without interrupting, and at the end say something like 'that sucks, Tony, let's go get wasted'. Devin had been doing the best out of anyone he'd ever met before, until right now at least. Thank heavens he managed to turn it around back on himself. Tony discreetly avoided talking about himself as he responded.  
  
I'd make the first one a priority.   
  
**Devin:** *The groan made him laugh as, unsurprisingly, his words were mostly -- well, it looked like Tony looked a bit insulted, mostly exasperated. Shaking his head, he holds both hands up and nods as he swears aloud,* Got it, Sensei, and that's it, I swear. No more unsolicited advice--I just wanted to let you know...I don't know, that I heard you. It didn't get ignored. But I get it: I'm here to do what -you- say, not the other way around.  
  
*Devin still meant what he said, don't get him wrong. But, how many people had told him he was being a dick? How many times had Lynn snapped rightfully at him -- had Hols? Devin knew none of them got through his thick skull--and he, hadn't been denying genetics and vampires for fathers or mafioso capos for brothers. (Though hey, let's not give Lynn ideas.)  
  
Tony hadn't heard his words as comforting, so he wouldn't be comforted. So Devin dropped it, shrugging a shoulder and giving the flask over again as he remarked, light,* Well that, and shoot you. Kick your ass, actually.  
  
*He was still smug.* And I'll see about making sure you die in a human way, mate. *Scratching at the mark on his forearm, then rolling sleeves down and adjusting the tape, he remarks calmly,* Take personal charge in the matter if you want. Question. Do you have an X-Box here?   
  
**Tony:** Damn straight, yes you are. I'm charge. *He was the top do...no, the alph- nope, he didn't like that one either. All these dog references to make a point about supposed masculinity were making him nauseous. Or maybe that was an after effect of Audrey's weird healing.*  
  
Hey now, don't get cocky! *He warned despite the fact he was amused and smirking too, shaking his head once before taking another swig* Still got a lot of work to do.  
  
*He hands the flask back, snorting at Devin volunteering to be the one to take him out if Tony wanted* 'ppreciate it.  
  
Nah, most of my things are still at my apartment, I haven't quite gotten them all over here yet. *And he probably wouldn't. Same reason Oli had that penthouse in the city, Tony had a smaller, more discreet and less in-your-face apartment on the other side of town.*  
  
Claude has an Xbox though. And I have high score records all over those games. Think you can kick my ass? Please. The real moment of truth starts now. And by now I mean, later, soon, once we get there. I need a shirt, and jeans with no blood on them.  
  
 **Devin:** Seriously, mate? You're, warning about getting too cocky? *Of course, he relaxed almost unconsciously -- definitely instinctively -- seeing the smirking, jovial response. Sometimes, Tony seriously did remind him of Alcott, but then he'd remember the whole 'serial killer' portion of things and...well. He was just grateful Tony wasn't insulted anymore, since he really didn't want to do so. (When Devin wanted to insult someone now, they knew it. And that was true before this damn rune.)  
  
Standing up as they finished the flask off, pleasantly buzzed and warm now, he chuckles at the remark -- even though there wasn't really anything funny about the fact he had to have a shirt without blood on it.* Yeah, you can try, mate. But you're on. Want me to text Claude, *He still had to remind himself not to call him 'Mr. Simmons',* while you change? Or you know, *his eyebrow pops up,* you orchestrate an Oceans 11 escape to find clothes without blood away from Stefanie and your brother? Cause. Well, mate I'd prefer not to get eaten. I mean sure we've been getting creative, but...  
  
*He honestly wasn't sure if he should be joking about Stefanie, but Alcott would have done so (go straight for the most insensitive joke -- or 'for the throat,' as his Sensei here had first told him) so he went with it.* And why Panda, anyway?   
  



	47. Holes

  
"Phew."  
  
Olivier let's out a low, impressed, whistle from where he sits down just across from her. There was a wine glass in his hand, and after a snap of his fingers, one appears on the side table next to her too. The room is still awash in green, gold and red; the Christmas tree still twinkling. Nodding absently as Olivier turns it over in his mind, he remarks gently standing back up "Well. Take it from someone who has a bit of experience in a loved on not in full control -- and simultaneously not being in control too? It's not usually about the magic. Not really."  
  
He gets up as he talks, wanting oddly to be a little closer. There were too many secrets here for him not to feel as though he should speak in hushed whispers and turn the lights low. As he did that, waving his hand and sitting next to Nadia with a smirk, he threw out offhand, "Though hey, I better be right or else he might think I'm hitting on you here with the soft light and candles."  
  
Olivier winks at her, predisposed to trying to make her laugh more than anything at first.  
  
"You said it," she nodded, suddenly wishing she had a glass of wine too. As if Olivier could read her mind, he made one appear with a snap of her fingers. Smiling wider, she picked it up with a small 'gracias' and took a sip. Christmas had passed but you couldn't tell from being in here. The only complaint she would have against the room is that it was currently too quiet. As long as they kept talking though, she should be fine.  
  
With a giggle, she looked around again, only just noticing when he pointed it out how it could be misconstrued. "As if he needs another reason to try and kill us," she joked, or rather tried to joke. It was only half funny, the other half of her was and would remain worried. That on top of sexual frustration did not make for a happy Nadia.  
  
"So what is it really about?" She asked curiously, wanting to know. Olivier was right, he had more experience at this than she did, and she wanted any help that there was.  
  
"You know? It's comments like that which remind me why I like you so much." Olivier's smirk was wide.   
  
Was that wrong? Well, probably. It probably was more correct that there were dozens of other reasons Nadia was both the sweetest and most terrifying girl he'd ever met. It was likely that very definition that makes the ever-backwards Olivier D'Grey appreciate her, but he wouldn't replace their sass for the sake of political correctness. Their sassiness cannot be contained.  
  
"For me?" Taking a sip in solidarity with the apparent melancholic pondering, Olivier smiles anyway to spite it before he speaks. The wine was smooth on his throat.  
  
"It's about power." He said it nonchalant. "For me, it's about Shakespeare's 'uneasy is the head who wears the crown', and the fact that when I drink? Not only do I feel invincible, I literally am getting stronger, faster, better sight and hearing, a better sense of smell. Oh, and touch." He smirks, eyebrows echoing his appreciation as of course, there was a reason the act was so sensual with Daniella.  
  
Tilting his glass back and forth as he watches the wine sway, he adds reluctantly, "And a psych book, according to Tony's psych 101, which he self-admits readily to sleeping through most of it, would add that for me it's about pleasing my late father. He's not wrong. I was glad to make him proud."  
  
Yeah, that wasn't exactly what Tony had said. You want to make him proud, and you're scared what might happen if you don't. Olivier thinks his brother wasn't wrong there either -- his world for years was predicated on Dad being happy -- but he didn't need to admit it either. He takes another sip, and looks back at Nadia, adding.  
  
"I'd wager it generally is about filling a want or hole you feel you have. Because...it's not that with Tony."  
  
"Because I walk the fine line of adorable and deadly?" She guessed with another laugh and smile. Yes, she'd been told that before. It only made sense that Olivier had a fondness for her. She poked and crawled her way under his skin. The difference was that while most invasions were repelling, Nadia had a gift of being warm and welcoming even when she was intruding. As Trent once told her, there was something about her that inspired protectiveness. She only ever used her superpower for good. Although, that seemed silly to say now...given that she had discovered actual superpower.  
  
Speaking of power, she was also unsurprised to hear that being the focus of his magical control. Olivier grew up as ostensibly the most powerful child in Europe. She had already been reprimanded for assuming about his childhood, his upbringing, and his father, but then he had explained. Well, briefly. Olivier was not the most open of people but this was also steadily changing. The fact he allowed so many into his home, for one, was proof of it.  
  
She also quickly realized, that wasn't her. It might have been Devin, partially. He had grand political aspirations, and a thirst for knowledge that had led to him experimenting in Dark Magic long before the events in France, and long before Audrey. It was why he had been more comfortable than she about the thought of Audrey's magic being of help. But no, it wouldn't be entirely about power with Devin either. That's not why he chose to have her draw the mark on his chest...which then magically moved on its own after being absorbed into his skin, that was still freaky to her.  
  
And Tony wouldn't be wrong either. Devin would probably agree, and he had been paying attention, mostly because it wasn't a psych class he attended, it was a book he had gone through in a week for a bit of light reading. Oh, Dev.   
  
Well, she could definitely think of a want that needed filling, wow this wine was making her cheeks really warm because it was the wine yes, but she had a feeling that wasn't what Olivier was talking about. She needed an example.  
  
"What do you think it is for Tony, then?"  
  
"Admirably," Olivier remarks, because she did.   
  
He wants to laugh for some reason, when she immediately, predictably, asks what he meant it was for Tony. Of course, that was what his mention, afterthought, would do. Talking about his brother so openly, and his issues with controlling the overwhelming urge to consume blood upon sight or scent? Why, yes, sign him right up!   
  
Eeriely struck by that snag-on-your-neck itch, shivery feeling of nostalgia, he lets himself resettle on the couch. Getting more comfortable in the cushions, his gaze sweeps from Nadia to the secretarial desk in the corner. The cherry-red wood had once held a letter from his nine year old little brother. Every other letter had been hidden carefully in books in his room, or slipped in record cases, books his father never read and of bands like Supertramp. Once Dad saw that letter, he'd crashed into Tony's life, snatched him up, banished their mother on penalty of that very life -- and Olivier had his brother with him from then until he was seventeen. How fortuitous was it his carelessness got him exactly what he wanted!  
  
Olivier knew himself better now; knew that afterthought that drove Nadia's specifying question was anything but casual. It gave him an excuse to talk about something Tony never did, with someone who wouldn't drink himself to oblivion, shudder, groan, and stick his tongue out for even bringing it up.   
  
"Er," he begins as if that's eloquent, meeting Nadia's gaze, "this is just my opinion. Admittedly, I think it's fair to say I know my brother better than anyone, but you know, given his habit of driving," or killing, "everyone who gives a damn about him away, that's also not that hard to be."  
  
Simply by the virtue that he'd spent those nine years with Tony no one else had day in and day out, he knew him best by default. Well. No one but Dad. See what he meant?  
  
"Tony doesn't want power, he's never wanted that. It's the core of where we differ," Olivier tilts his head, smiling. It had never escaped him, the irony that he and his brother were the opposite of what normal parents would have considered the "crooked kind" Dad thought Tony was. Olivier strives to be unique, a life of being respected even if the cost was being feared -- and Tony strives for normalcy, a life of being good even if the cost was losing his family. At least. That used to be true.  
  
"Where I want to be special, he wants to be normal. I wanted Dad's approval. Tony wanted his love. I want strength, he wants freedom. I want consolidated power that can't be beaten, the only thing he wants to be best at is pool, sex, Mario Kart, and Game of Thrones trivia night." Olivier takes a second to chuckle, rubbing over his eyes as he pinched his nose to hold back extending the sound long enough to turn bitter. Then he has to clear his throat before continuing.  
  
"And once upon a time, I drank blood with barely a conscious from my very first sip, yet even when he tasted it in a sparring match at fifteen? The only thing he had to strive for was restraining anger. Well,  violently acting on that anger."  
  
Nadia immediately tilted her head and raised her eyebrows as Olivier began with a disclaimer about this only being his opinion. Well, obviously, otherwise she wouldn't have phrased her question as what he -thought- it was. Opinions were as important as facts in Nadia's book, and not solely because it was Olivier's opinion, who as he said knew his brother above all else. The truth was vice-versa too, Nadia guessed, neither brother talked of the other too openly without some poking. This is where Nadia came into play.  
  
Taking another sip of the wine again, quietly marveling at how smoothly it went down her throat, she listened to Olivier's thoughts on what drove his brother's control, or rather lack of control.  
  
Olivier's start actually explained, without meaning to, why some might prefer one brother over another. Ambition was a tricky trait. Those without ambition tended to dislike those with it because it made them look bad, or because they thought a person with ambition impossible to satisfy. A person with ambition could also think those without it too lazy because he or she could never settle for less. The tricky part was that people with ambition tended to be antagonistic with each other, especially if their goals were similar because suddenly it became a competition. At the same time, people with ambition respected one another. In general, people with ambition were arrogant, driven, proud and a sometimes even a bit standoffish; they had to be to get what they wanted. They weren't afraid of being disliked, they strove for something greater (unless that goal -was- being well liked, but that opened up a whole other can of worms).  
  
It was easier to like someone when they posed absolutely no threat to you. Well, no perceived threat, she should say. Easier to like someone just like you, trying to be normal, not wanting to stand out. It was why the Miss Congeniality award in the Miss Universe pageant was usually given to the perceived less beautiful of the women: she was lovely, and easy to like, because she wasn't considered actual competition.  
  
Nadia had noticed that among their group of friends, Tony tended to be better liked, because he strove to be better liked. Olivier didn't care whether he was liked or not, he wanted to be respected. And his ultimate tool for respect had always been fear, something he had learned from his father. Olivier was right, that is where the brothers differed most. It wasn't in their morality, because Tony was not without sins and crimes of his own, and Olivier had qualities of a good man himself. It wasn't their beliefs that separated them as much as their wants. That need to be filled, as Olivier had said.  
  
The list of the only things Tony wanted to be good at made her laugh. It made Tony sound like a teenage boy, but from the times Nadia had spent with him she knew enough to know that was entirely too accurate. The laugh faded and so did the smile, nodding quietly as Olivier continued, further explaining a difference that made her frown, confused.  
  
"Where does the anger stem from? While you're drinking, I mean. Is it just...repressed until then?" She didn't know much about how hybrids worked, so maybe that was just how they were born. Naturally angry, violent...but Nadia didn't believe that. Evil was never born, it was made, and these brothers were far from evil. Gustav? Now he -was- evil. Nadia cleared her throat before her own anger came running back, a chorus of screams serving as a battle cry.  
  
An excellent question, he chuckles under his breath as Nadia continued to prove her perception of the brothers was better than most. He'd added 'violent', because that was how he related to it. Where as Tony, well, he had a hundred different reasons right now to be angry and, even if realistically only a few could actually be address, Olivier was willing to be more than half of then legitimate.   
  
(And he wasn't talking about being angry when people skipped the 9th doctor when starting Dr. Who, though yes, Olivier agreed with his brother on that. Eccleston's doctor was vastly underappreciated.)  
  
"I think." He tilts his head after reaching for his wine glass (aka letting it float into his hand), "it relates to...how we get the blood. At it's most basic level, instinct drives us to want it? Just like humans when need potassium, they suddenly want a plantain." Olivier considers for a moment taking out Harper's little charts and comic strips. There was nothing like his brother rendered as a scarlet Hulk that made the point stands out.  
  
" Violence is the most natural way to get human blood, just like lions get meat from a deer with their teeth and claws. Though, Harper had another theory too. When he took our blood and began testing us...well, the sight of a drop of blood made Tony want to rip him apart to get it. Harper postulates it's because that was how he learned to get what we biologically want. Slash need, actually, it is a nutrient to us. Being iron deficient won't kill a human, apart from being a contributing factor, but it will make them lethargic, short of breath, their muscles weaker, even change the pallor of their skin. So it is with us without human blood."  
  
Olivier shrugs, because the biology was interesting, but he was avoiding the simple nugget of truth hidden away in there. Dad taught him violence or sex was the way to get it, yes, but he taught Tony. Without ever meaning to, true, but he did.  
  
Taking another smooth, long sip he breathes out and theorizes aloud himself.  
  
"I think Tony's anger stemmed from the fact that when he tasted blood, he liked it. Not the taste, the feeling it gave him. It's...Nadia, please pardon me if inappropriate, but it is the best metaphor. It's like an orgasm. Literally, okay?" He chuckled, even though the chuckle was probably the most inappropriate, "I mean, I'd have to ask Harper for specifics but I'd wager our body absorbing it does release the same endorphins that cause anyone to feel pleasure, happiness, ecstasy. It's revitalizing our system to the state it should be in, so, muscles relax, tension's relieved, and you feel...warm. Hot, actually, but...peaceful."  
  
Olivier takes another sip, letting her daydream about it a moment considering he knew where he meant to go with it. Nadia's boyfriend had tried to kill her, and they couldn't have sex. She deserved a minute.   
  
Then he sets the glass down, claps his hands together, mouth twisting in something of a smile.  
  
"Tony D'Grey, Catholic and rebel against everything Remington D'Grey TM, liking drinking blood? It doesn't matter if it was only a second; I'd wager that was all it took for absolutely everything inside him to resent and reject it. Nope, nope, nope, not allowed!" He pointed this way and that, accenting the 'pah!' in nope as Tony does.   
  
"And thus. Anger."   
  
Okay, Nadia could go along with that. Not that she'd ever had a craving for plantain before...then again, cravings weren't entirely physiological. Sometimes she craved chocolate, and it wasn't because her body needed it (she didn't think), but because...actually, she didn't know the science behind it and it sounded like Olivier did, through Harper's help.  
  
She continued to nod, understanding that much at least. Instinct then, the way to get blood was to hurt someone else. Humans were brutal, and there were very little ways to get blood from a human without hurting them. Even the most harmless way, donation, had side effects. A needle prick hurt if the hands weren't steady, okay? Not that she'd had a blood test in years so maybe the memory was being played up in her mind more than usual.  
  
"Wow, okay," she accepted the analogy after a sudden blink, chuckling and then nodding along. Not that it helped her in the slightest, honestly it sucked. Though, that was a bad choice of words. She had a longer sip of the wine than before, suddenly feeling jealous. It wasn't like she was deprived of those but...it just, wasn't the same, okay? This was -so- unfair. Nadia had been driven to tears of frustration before, so she didn't doubt that in this situation she would also have a limit, reach it, and then the waterworks would begin. Hopefully she would be alone when that happened.  
  
"Gotcha," she nodded to show she understood, eager to move on from the feeding orgasms. Right, so...okay, Tony liked how it felt and it was that which drove him to anger that came out as violence. Very old school Catholic of him. So instead of lashing his own back (the image was too vivid for her to say aloud, it had already made a shiver run down her spine), he took it out on whoever was unlucky enough to have spilled blood around him.  
  
"But then wouldn't he just need to accept that it's not a bad thing to make the anger go away?" Something told her that was easier said than done.  
  
Why, yes, that was all he had to do! Olivier's snort-chuckle-smirk goes without saying now, right? Haha!  
  
"Accept that drinking human bloo--sorry, let me rephrase-accept that subjagating an innocent, good, pure human being to use not unlike that of cattle and fish and consuming their bodily fluid necessary for their very existence on the planet doesn't go against every creed in the Bible, Torah and the Qur'an, not to mention probably Bill Maher's new rules and Oprah Winfrey, and Jon Snow himself's personal mantras, on top of being not against the laws of, you know, normal decency? Sure! Easy! You have met my brother, right?"  
  
Nadia's expression clearly reads 'your sass is noted and I won't admit appreciated' to him, but Olivier chuckles anyways. He has to laugh. That chuckle was most definitely inappropriate, but alas, he wasn't perfect, and laughter at such things? It became second nature to him a long time ago.   
  
(Tony taught him how.)  
  
Clearing his throat by another generous sip of wine before setting it down again, Olivier sighs mentally.  
  
"Yes, it should be. But accepting that...well, it isn't enough to gain control, just maybe...make him less angry. Actually I could argue getting rid of that anger won't help him gain control at all, since it motivates him not to drink. For years it was more than enough even. And now, as right as Harper is..."  
  
Olivier hesitates. He wasn't a scientist, nor did he like speaking against his friend. (Funny how free he felt to use the word friend, too.) Shifting again in the seat, he weighs his words carefully before speaking again.  
  
"Telling Tony it was a biological need, gave him a cop out." He holds up one hand, intimating a lower voice, "Why do you drink blood until it kills someone when you see it?" Then up goes the other hand, voice higher, "Because I can't stop myself, I can't help it, it's biological."  
  
He drops both hands. The smack they make seems extraordinarily loud to him, and Olivier smiles. As if a smile does anything to lessen the sound.  
  
"It's not the blood itself, it's the feeling he's addicted too. And trust me Nadia, stopping yourself from feeling great and peaceful and happy? Do you know how to do that? Do you ever even -want- to know how to do that?"  
  
Her pursed lips, slightly narrowed eyes, and exasperated exhale were enough, thankfully, to get the point across that yes, she got it and understood. He didn't really need to be such a condescending meanie about it. Nevertheless, ignoring how momentarily annoyed she had felt at being talked down to, Nadia saw Olivier's point. Accepting that would go against everything Tony has ever believed about himself, the world, and morality. There was no way, or only a very inconceivably difficult way, for him to be able to do that.  
  
She was wary about his next words, because if he was about to declare Harper wrong in any way, shape, or form, she would stop him right there. Harper was always right, but at the interest of being politically correct, Harper was right 99% of the time. As Olivier further explained however, in mocking voices that made Nadia laugh a little, she saw his point. It did give Tony an excuse.  
  
"How can he believe that when you've learned to stop though? That's a double standard." Though she had heard his infamous claim of 'not claiming to not be a hypocrite' already. Seems like Tony held other people to standards he couldn't keep himself. Hypocrisy at its finest, or rather worst.  
  
Biting on her bottom lip at the question, she raised her chin stubbornly and answered, "If my happiness was being found selfishly at someone else's expense, hurting them, yes, I would want to know how to do that." She waited a few seconds and then added pointedly.  
  
"I would want someone to help me how to do that, starting possibly with pointing out how hypocritical I've been."  
  
Another fine question, he thinks. Olivier would say it, but he had already been on the receiving end of  her glaring at him for stating the obvious. No need to turn that into a pinch (or knife in the eye--oh, too soon?)  
  
Still, Tony was incredibly practiced at precisely that: double standards, double negatives. And one more thing.  
  
"It's easier to believe you didn't have a choice." Olivier might speak plainly, but he was watching over her shoulder, fixed on the desk again as if held all his answers. Licking a bottom lip as if lost in memory, he breathes out. Tony knew he had a choice though. Even if he pretended otherwise, because denial was so damn attractive, Tony's sarcasm cuts too deep a wound to be anything but honest.   
  
Smiling a small smile at Nadia's words, he nods absently and approvingly.   
  
"Aha, yes, well let's just say before I even get the words 'hypocritical' out you snap back at me that's why you've stopped telling me not to do bad things."   
  
The truth was, Olivier had one very clear reason to believe it was more than possible for Tony to stop. When he picked up Emily's body, there was still blood in her. Not on her, in her: he could smell it. Marlon (rot in hell) had made a dick comment about necrophilia seeing Olivier stiffen in want, but the fact had stayed with him. Tony hadn't continued drinking her blood once she was dead -- and of course he hadn't. Instead or warmth and peace, he'd have tasted chilled distress; instead of life, he'd have tasted death. A shiver goes up Olivier's spine at the thought.  
  
"I did stop for a while," he says a bit softer, "but it wasn't exactly a moral-driven decision. I was only fifteen when I started...and after Tony left, I just..." He throws his hand away from him, bemused and ashamed at the same time.  
  
"Tony made the decision to go to university after Claude pushed him, but...also after we got in a fight. Over...a lot of things, but my drinking predominantly. Tony punched me first but I...I ended it thoroughly, an d Nadia...that image is just, burned on the back of my eyelids sometimes. Tony on the ground, my fist bloody...I'd snapped. If Claude hadn't been there, sometimes I even think I might have..."  
  
He cuts off abruptly, drowning the rest of his thought into the wine glass and stands up. He paces to the fireplace, the glass empty by the time he's setting it over the mantle and leaning to start a fire. The chill in the air rattled him. That, and Nadia.  
  
Looking back over his shoulder a second, he continues, clear-eyed.   
  
"I was full of guilt, and I was still angry...and so I turned it off. Didn't know it at the time, but the girl, vampire, Chantel, that I started seeing? Tony'd asked her to help me, night before he left. Goes to show you he knows me pretty damn well too."  
  
Chantel probably hadn't made it obvious to Tony how exactly she 'helped,' but oh, had he enjoyed himself. Even knowing she was married (ish) to Theo; hey, it was an open marriage.   
  
"He was gone a little over two years. Didn't answer my letters or calls or send so much as a birthday card." Olivier snorts. The log he threw on the fire as he sparks it to light with his finger crackles in his ear. As he stands, he's brushing wood chips off Armani sleeves he'd rolled back.   
  
"I'd made a compromise with myself for a while only to drink from vampires--Chantel herself, or my other friend, Bri...she helped, a lot. It seemed to work. But then I just kind of stopped. There was no real reason, it just...it just was empty. And," he exhales, shrugging a shoulder slowly as he leans against the mantle, gaze back on Nadia, "And, I realized, you know, that I couldn't replace my brother with endless amounts of blood."  
  
Listening hard to their surroundings -- to the crackling-popping fire, to the soft wind outside the window, the clock chiming down the hall -- it's not until Olivier was fully satisfied they're still alone he speaks again.  
  
"Don't tell him that I ever said that," he says first, and though he's smiling, he's dead serious.   
  
"It's not...he needs to figure it out on his own, I could never have come to that understanding if someone told me it. Nadia, Tony is more than capable of pulling himself back. His addiction to that feeling..happy, comfortable, warm. That's what he won't admit to...and until he does, there isn't much I can do besides literally pull him back and trust that Stefanie does the same thing. Which I do." Mostly. He wasn't hanging around outside Tony's bedroom door or anything, because gross. "He thinks it's a question of willpower, wanting one thing - stopping - more than another - continuing. It isn't, or at least, it wasn't for me. It was feeling satisfied. That let me stop. And I'd tell him that, but he has to find it out on his own...and you know, also, he'd probably immediately do the opposite."  
  
Obviously. Nadia had just never been taught to believe that. Her mother was a very proactive person, rather than a reactive one. Consequently, she taught Nadia and the rest of her siblings never to just sit back and let things happen. It took a little longer than her other siblings for Nadia to grow into that, but she had.  
  
"Like Alisha's uncle says, everything is a choice," Nadia nodded. Tony couldn't ignore that. He didn't strike her as a very reactive person who waited around and let things happen to him and dealt with the consequences of it afterwards. The same was true here.  
  
"I've never snapped at you to stop doing bad things," she sniffed and then raised her chin a bit again, "I snapped at you to good things, there's a difference." It was there. After all, there were people who did bad things in the world, and people who let those bad things happen and Nadia strove to be neither. She also strove to inspire people to be neither as well, and add good into the world with her. Irene liked to joke that one day people would remember her like they remembered Gandhi and Mother Theresa. As long as they didn't add 'saint' to her name in this future of Irene's, Nadia wouldn't mind.  
  
"I didn't...," mean it permanently, stopping she meant. Nadia wasn't able to finish though because Olivier was speaking again and she found herself to captivated by the narrative to continue or interfere again. Captivated, but in a rather horrible way. That right there, that's what she worried about now too, actually. That one day Devin could do that to Al, or Reid, or, apparently, her. Not that she willingly admitted it; she hated doubting him even for the briefest of moments. She had already learned her lesson over that hadn't she? So as much as she knew Devin would never, never, harm her...she couldn't say the same for the magic now running through his veins. Still, she had to trust, she had to believe. Like she believed now.  
  
He stood up before Nadia could even begin to offer a hand squeeze or knee tap or just a general-physical-display-of-comfort. He might not have needed it, it was a long time ago after all, but she would have liked to express it either way if only to silently encourage him to continue. Nevertheless, he kept on keeping on, heading over to start a fire while she watched him over the top of her glass. She still had the majority of her wine left over but she wasn't a hybrid, and significantly smaller than Olivier. Nadia knew how to pace herself, especially when the object wasn't to get drunk but appreciate the taste. It was way too fine a wine for her to chug.  
  
Smiling briefly as he asks her not to divulge his secret of sorts, Nadia reluctantly nods, about to tell him he should really tell himself before Olivier explained. The fact that the...hole you felt couldn't be filled with whatever the blood made you feel (that was Olivier's hole! It wasn't just power either! Oh, she might tear up) was something Tony had to figure out for himself, the same way Olivier had. And Olivier had taken...how long exactly? Knowing Tony's stubborn nature...how long would it take him? How many innocent people could he hurt in the meantime?  
  
Looking down into her wine glass, circling the rim with the pads of her fingers, the color now only brings up the blood which was their subject of discussion (kind of). So much easier said than done, Olivier was right. When she thought it was just letting go of that anger at himself, she found it difficult but doable. Asking someone to feel satisfied though? Some people never learned that. In others, it was an actual...physical problem, wasn't it? The amygdala or...something. She wasn't a brain surgeon, she had no idea.   
  
"It sounds like...he's never really been satisfied in any aspect of his life though, so how is he gonna get to that conclusion on feeding if he can't...," she pursed her lips and then tapped her glass again as she looks up.  
  
"It could take a long while. You're going to keep being there to pull him back?"   
  
"Oh he has been," Olivier said instinctively, wincing at the thought that his brother had never felt full, never felt like he belonged. He had, just...  
  
"It's been a long time," Olivier said, softly. "You could say the spell broke when I lost Dad. We'd been on the same side, but...after that..."  
  
He wasn't going to talk about why, exactly, he blamed his brother for that. (Might have something to do with the bullets and stake being his brothers.) Nor would he talk about where he held Dad responsible either (might have something to do with the teeth in his neck). In any case? Spell was broken.  
  
Sighing and sliding his hand along the mantleplace, then the all, then smacking his thigh, he steps over towards Nadia in a slow, winding route.   
  
"Every day." Olivier swore to her, tapping his ear before he sits on the arm of the couch. "I keep more than my supernatural hearing out, but still, always."   
  
He slid off the arm of the chair back into the leather hug with an oph under his breath. He felt oddly exposed, like a raw nerve, and yet...warmed too. Though that was probably the fire.  
  
"I've been, slowly, showing him what Briana did me. In a safe environment. The more he succeeds on his own, the more confident he'll be, which builds on itself. Sometimes all there is is to...try. The truth is, Nadia? Tony needs to feel listened to...and it's the same thing, I wager, with Devin. It's not like you can't ask him what he needs. If he doesn't know, he doesn't know--but it helps sometimes just to know you were asked, non e vero?"   
  
Ha, ha...he almost can hear Tony's response: who was being the hypocrite now?  
  
Speaking of which. He raised his hand, saying in a smaller smile, almost sheepish, "And I know you've never told me not to do bad things. Tony has, I meant. Tony knows I can call him a hypocrite if he does anymore, so he stopped. Which...is only more evidence he's fully aware of his hypocrisy," Olivier shrugs, settling back in the arm chair and rubbing his face again. Then he adds, softer, "Stefanie's rolled up in all of this too, now. Losing her at the same time as having her at the same time as holding yourself responsible for her losing herself? I'm just hoping...hoping that his realizing she's still largely the same person he was falling in love with before will help him see what he is, what we are, as 'normal.' If it can be more normal to him, then he doesn't have to try and change himself. He doesn't have to want to be less normal if the definition of normal's different."  
  
Not exactly full of details, but in these personal and private matters she took what she could get. He might not ever had revealed he even had a brother in the first place if she hadn't bugged him hard enough, and she guessed it was the same now. Maybe it was easier to talk about him to her, because there wasn't that many people he could broach the subject with. She could think of a couple of others only, Eliza, and Daniella for example. Either way, Nadia was happy to listen. Even if all she could do was listen, which is what Olivier advised now.  
  
Though when she had asked him whether or not he was going to be there, she didn't mean it as if...it was responsibility, like he should, even if he did feel the way. She asked because...well, it wasn't exactly fair for him was it? Almost like eternal babysitting. It was rigorous work. But Olivier didn't even blink over how much time it could take, and how much effort he had to put in, and what he'd potentially be giving up (Devin had taught her the concept of opportunity costs). That was a lot of dedication, a lot of love. Nadia understood, even if she couldn't empathize even if she was asking Olivier for advice in a mildly similar, mildly, situation. That had never stopped her from sympathizing though.  
  
"Okay," she nodded, pulled from her thoughts as she was addressed again specifically. She was grateful he could turn it back on her and her current problem, appreciated any help she could find. Pausing momentarily, she found herself chuckling over his choice of words because her mind immediately went to-  
  
"I know what he needs, I just can't give it to him." With another sip of her wine she chuckled after the small joke, eager to ease tension she hadn't known she'd been building up. Everything was just so much more intense now. Maybe it was the crackling flames, the subject of their discussion, or Olivier himself, but her magic felt agitated in her own body. Where was that satisfaction when you needed it?  
  
"Maybe," she nodded after a few seconds of weighing Stefanie's involvement and if she could better Tony's situation.  
  
"Last year, I thought I was losing Devin for good. Only instead of to death, it was to...I suppose, the status quo. He felt he'd been disgraced and ignored his entire life, that carried a social stigma and he didn't want to anymore so he started behaving differently. Ignoring me in public. I used to think just being around Dev would help him but it didn't really matter, I think, if I was there or not, not until he learned to love himself too. Tony sounds like he needs a lot of validation, and I might be wrong, but I think accepting himself would make him accept Stef, not the other way around."  
  
Guess it wasn't inappropriate after all, he thinks as he laughs abruptly, mid finger-snap to fill his glass again. Tilting his head, "Well, you -can-...I'd wager Irene can help you."  
  
Toasting her with genuine appreciation before he folds his knee over the other, he rests his glass loosely, hand dangling over the edge. He was listening hard.  
  
It wasn't entirely news to him; after all, Devin's late bastard of an uncle (through marriage) had been required to tell him the bare minimum of every leg of his plans. D'Grey had been culpable for his crimes under Roswell, but he wouldn't work ignorantly, and Roswell had just so dearly loved to toss that word "friend" around.   
  
So he knew about Devin's so-called 'dark ages', the times which Devin himself so wholly rejects now and which led to the youngest wolf putting Roswell's nephew in the hospital. It had been, for the Scooby gang their catalyst into the war. But he had never heard Nadia's take, and he finds himself frowning as she explains. Ignoring her in public? Oh, D'Grey understood the urge to search for respect and power, lest he fade into dismissed ignominy, as he'd just said-but it sounded as if Devin hadn't even been, well. Clever, about it!   
(Tony wasn't the only D'Grey brother that doesn't claim not to be a hypocrite.)  
  
"It sounds as if Devin wanted something more than love, you know." He says it mildly, now arching his eyebrows as he admits with a tiny chuckle, "Though just my phrasing -'more than love'- does...admittedly, show my bias."  
  
With a chuckle as he takes another sip, he looks up curiously at the last point and finds himself nodding, very slowly.   
  
"That also seems possible." He agreed, sighing out and twirling the wine in the glass, "Just solidifies my belief they're both the best and the worst things for each other, really."   
  
He smirks, but there was nothing of amusement in his somber gaze.   
  
"Huh. You know. I wonder if Devin's act last year had anything to do with his magic naturally urging him to seek out the mark." Olivier isn't sure if he was speaking to soothe her or honestly wondering. Likely, both. Did he ever not have dual objectives? Even in brief, friendship encounters?  
  
"What did it feel like for you?" He asks, eyes suddenly latched on hers. "I know how I feel, I have a fair idea how Tony does...I don't know what you felt. Besides, obviously, surprise and panic seeing a gun pointed at you. Though I wager you wondered if there was someone behind you Devin actually was pointing at with it first."  
  
Nadia groaned, "I've had enough of Irene trying to help me there. Tony too for that matter." Sex really shouldn't be this stressful. And that was her limit on talking about it without blushing, so she took another sip of the glass of wine she was nursing.  
  
"Yeah," Nadia nodded, agreeing with that. Respect, acknowledgement, power too, acceptance. "I'd wager so does Tony. After all, he already knows you love him. 'His girls' as he so affectionately calls them love him and pamper him and cuddle him. His bros do too. If it were only love, it would have already been enough."  
  
She tilted her head again, "I mean...if he knows it...does he?" Nadia frowned, a little worried for what it would mean otherwise. That was just so sad, if he didn't know how many people loved him, or worse, if he didn't believe it. These brothers were not suppose to give her such intense feelings!  
  
"Interesting theory," Nadia wondered briefly too, but...no, she didn't think so. She couldn't discount it, but Nadia believed the circumstances were socially built there, not naturally. It might have been a factor, but not that great of one. At least, that was her opinion.  
  
"Me?" She suddenly said, surprised, almost forgetting that conversations tended to be two-sided. Pursing her lips together, she tried to recall it and then had to exhale out deeply so that the emotions weren't repeated again. That would be dangerous; Devin almost flew through the window.  
  
"Panicked," she decided first, that was what she recalled most, "and angry. But, frightened, mostly frightened." She looked down at her cup and then forced a chuckle, "Pathetic, right?"  
  
Once again, Olivier wants to immediately rebut that of course Tony knew he loved him. No, he couldn't...remember a time in recent memory he'd told him it in any serious way, but the night of Ansel's coup he knew he'd said it in that joking-we-know-we're-not kind of way. He knew it because he knew Tony had said he loved him too, and Tony had meant that. So his brother had to know he meant it back, right?  
  
Wrinkling his nose at the mention of 'his girls', he has to think if they had. He was certain Belle had said it, that their sisters had, he's even certain Daniella has even if she's never said that to him. Olivier gets that. It meant something entirely different said to him. For the same reason he's equally certain Stefanie has never said it. And yet just as Nadia said, they all cuddled and pampered him, making it obvious in their actions, right?  
  
"He knows he's loved." Olivier says, uncomfortably short with the statement and rubbing his hand off on his pant leg, bouncing his ankle. Sweat sticks behind.   
  
"I'm...not entirely sure he believes it's a good thing. Therein lies the problem, really," he clears his throat and sits up adding brightly without taking a breath, "and it's not pathetic! Nadia. I know you've been through hell lately, but...you're still fifteen, and your boyfriend was pointing a gun at your face. It's not pathetic to be scared."  
  
Like he said-slash-thought before: Tony was not the only D'Grey to never say he wasn't a hypocrite. He didn't think pretending not to feel fear was strength anyways: admitting you did and disregarding it was the only way he knew to be brave. Lifting a finger to scratch the side of his nose, the back of his mind is still turning over her question. Between himself, Stefanie, and Belle alone, there were plenty of examples for why Tony might not believe he was loved or accepted in any healthy way -- and that was before you added in Emily.   
  
But he wasn't going there, no. He'd revealed enough -- far too much, actually -- of his brother already.   
  
"And then you just reacted instinctively?  
  
To Nadia it seemed like Olivier was assuring himself more than her when he answered her question. She nodded, and hoped that he was right. It was too sad to consider otherwise, which meant of course that's probably what it was. Like the law of entropy: anything that could go wrong would go wrong. It wasn't Nadia's style to place much believe that, as she put a lot of belief into the power of positivity, but the D'Grey's were like a....sorrowful sun in the center of a gritty galaxy, and every little problematic planet...did it's thing, okay she was spacing out on the word she wanted.  
  
Oh, spacing, ha ha, pun.   
  
She looked down at her wine, what exactly was the percent in alcohol, and how much of a lightweight was she really? Nope, she refused to believe that this was all alcohol induced. Which of course just meant she was naturally this lame, which she kind of knew already.  
  
"No...I guess not," she allowed, "but around everyone else, it sure feels that way. It's difficult being anything less than tough around you guys. It's not just me who's gone through a lot, everyone...they really seem to have taken it stride. Everyone's so strong, because now it's like there's no other choice. And no one really wants to admit to any vulnerability, so it's just me, trying to be as brave as everyone else. Trying to pretend I don't hear those people screaming every night, whenever it gets too quiet. Trying not to flinch whenever Chace or any of my other brothers make any sudden movements in my direction."  
  
Trying hard not to picture that bastard Gustav, and that psychopath Rhys. And most definitely trying to keep herself from bringing it up. No one else did, and Nadia was arguably the least harmed by this in the entire 'Scooby gang' as Tony called it. Nadia didn't do well not talking about things...but no one wanted to talk. They wanted to drink, or shop, or ignore, or move on, so who was she to ask that of them? She had no right.  
  
"I guess I just don't have the luxury to feel like a fifteen year old anymore. I can't even try to be one again. Not just because in two months I'll be 16 either," she joked at the end before taking another sip so she had something to do other than to look back at Olivier.  
  
"But yeah," she cleared her throat after blinking repeatedly, annoyed with herself for going off on a tangent, "instinct. What's more basic than self-preservation? I felt threatened and I...lashed out."  
  
Tilting his head, Olivier had to admit: yes, all right, perhaps learning how to be capo was in many ways the direct opposite of learning to make people relax around him. He could understand easily why being around people like Eliza and Harper, could make someone feel like they have no right to complain. Yet, Nadia has to feel comfortable with him to some degree, or she wouldn't be sharing this now.   
  
It reminds him oddly how he was still trying to impress upon his brother that in actuality, the way he ran the business was very different than Dad. It's not a criticism of Dad (as much as Tony would want it to be): Dad didn't have the luxury he did. The name "D'Grey" in France had commanded respect since he was born, and an understanding that crossing them meant -- worse than death, it meant the erasure of existence. That fear appeared the moment he said his name, even in those girls who instantly hit on him, even in politicians who assumed they could garner his momentous pull and wealth for support, even in people who considered being around him a thrill.   
  
Tony assumed he only took that as a thrill himself and busied himself mocking Olivier's pleasure so he didn't have to consider the truth: in that moment was opportunity Olivier was careful never to squander. With the girls, yeah, he was guilty as charged with enjoying their awe. The teenage him had never minded being their "one bad decision." Politicians he'd weigh more carefully. Currying his favor by asking to be bribed, however subtle it was, sent up huge red flags for him. They weren't discreet, and Olivier had to consider discretion above all. More often than not, he worked it to his advantage irregardless. He'd told Harper he played a game of confounding his reputation. It was true. (Of course, even Harper didn't understand how strange his honesty was in that moment).  
  
Where people expect him to act like the pit-boss in seedy nightclubs, gorgeous girls hanging off his arm, bodybuilder body-guards warding off unwanted intrusions? Olivier sat alone at a bar, or (as the papers seemed to have noticed) went to high-end restaurants with his girlfriend. When they expected he'd threaten their daughter for failing to pay him, he forgave the debt. He'd pay for their daughter's tuition to an elite school and leave both father and girl indebted to him for life -- with an easy way to exploit them later. (And then when they weren't looking, he'd clean out their bank account and take more than twice of what he was owed).   
  
When people weren't loyal to him, he (mostly) didn't need to take them for a ride to the docks. It was child's play to set them up, get them arrested. Laurel (re: the Parisian chief of the policia municipale) was only too happy to lock his enemies or disloyal employees up for him.   
  
Gratitude was a more powerful motivator than fear; pleasure a more reliable way to get someone to do what you needed than pain. Murder was a blunt, inelegant tool -- especially the way D'Grey knew his base instincts pushed him to commit it. People disappearing created questions, created unhappy relatives who had to be silenced too and so on and so forth. Besides? Sure, it was hard to trace someone's DNA when they were ripped to shreds, but it made a *mess*, and these carpets were hundreds of years old.   
  
Olivier clears his throat, taking a sip of his wine.   
  
"Nadia," he says softly, "I'm beginning to think you and I might have a respectable amount in common." He sets the glass down, claps his hands together and leans forward on his knees, closer to her.  
  
"The things you mention -- trying not to flinch, trying not to listen at night -- they're only vulnerabilities if you let them be. You're living in a state of hyper-awareness. That can be incredibly helpful; you're likely to see things that no one else will. And if it's something that isn't real, if it's a memory?"  
  
Like, say, the memory of his brother on the ground bleeding from his own fist. And that was just the only one that he'd told her: Olivier wouldn't burden her with his other memories.  
  
"When you hear those screams, don't block them out, let them in, and then tell yourself to remember the people you helped set free. The people you heard screaming, remember the ones that went to the hospital, free, at Notre Dame. Remember their faces, just keep describing them to yourself, and eventually...you won't be afraid to hear them.   
  
At least, that's kind of what helped me. I choose to be grateful that I didn't hurt my brother permanently, as opposed to scared of what I might have done. You can choose too."  
  
He lifts his hand, sweeps back through his hair and continues.  
  
"As for feeling like a fifteen year old, or sixteen year old...you're right, you can't be one again. At least not a typical one. But you know what's also true? You've a hell of a leg-up. While girls and boys your age are worried about school exams and whose hair looks the worst in their driving license photo...the things you've had to worry about, which granted no teenager *should* have to worry about? You know more about what's wrong with the world than most."  
  
He smiles briefly, honestly, and wide.   
  
"I don't think you realize how unusual you were, in those cells. Your instinct might have been to lash out at me, but it also was to misdirect, answer my questions, and sneak a butter knife out under your sleeve. Even where you were lashing out, you weren't trying to stab me with it." He winks.   
  
"You honestly weren't trying to save yourself, you were trying to make the world a better place. You weren't afraid of me -- or, maybe you were, but you didn't let it stop you calling me out. You didn't think you had anything left to lose, and that made you the most dangerous person I've ever met. Not because you'd be willing to kill or stab someone's eye out -- but because you were willing to tell anyone in the world who I was."  
  
He was starting to ramble, and he shook his head to himself, breathing out and still regarding Nadia with a wide smile.   
  
"What I mean to say, Nadia, is that you have a remarkable gift to be able to live through what you did and still think the world should be a better place. The fact that you're not bitter, that you're not eager to be pushing this fallacy of strength? That you're not eager to make it easier to kill someone, that you're pushing for other ways to be brave? Most people would call you naive, but you aren't. Not after what you went through. You saw the ugliest parts of humanity and you *still* believe the best in it. And I wager that's partially because your friends and you are, the best of it."  
  
He coughs, and shrugs his shoulder. It was true. Eliza and Nadia at their core were very different -- Eliza was willing to lie and cheat and kill to save herself and her friends, where Nadia would do it for the world, but not for herself. At the same time, they both astound him for the simple fact they still...were optimistic. They still pushed for hope, for light.  
  
"More importantly, you have the one thing I can't have, that most who have learned what you have about the world can't. You're still young. You might not feel like a fifteen year old, but you are fifteen. You have more time on the Earth naturally, remarkable gifts of insight and power...honestly, who knows what you're going to be capable of doing? And he laughs now, leaning closer and picking his wine glass up again. He takes a sip before he smirks his way through teasing her.   
  
"Who knows, maybe you'll go steal the guns from kids in Africa. Pinch their bosses into baking apology cakes for them. I'm certainly not betting against you."  
  
Olivier talked of not allowing any vulnerabilities to take place, and it made sense to her why he would say that, but Nadia's point was that there was nothing wrong with having them. Everyone did, it made them human. But vulnerabilities could be exploited, used, in this world she was now living in. It didn't have to be kill or be killed, it didn't have to be that way. But if she couldn't even make her friends understand, how was could she do anything for anyone else?  
  
More so, she didn't feel strong enough. A look down into the cup of her wine again betrayed her insecurities. She couldn't live through those screams again. Couldn't relive every flinch by remembering how she was struck. She hadn't saved those people. Se was tired of people telling her she had, giving her credit for doing something so heroic when all she had done was played message in a bottle between Harper and Alcott. Or rather, just the bottle. It wasn't as if Harper's genius couldn't have figured out another way. Once Olivier joined Harper's side, or rather a parallel side, there was nothing for her to do. She kept trying to change that but all it ended was her being too late. Wallace died in front of her eyes. She had stood up to Rhys for his sake, saved him from a little bit of suffering for what? So he could die? So he'd never see the light of the sun ever again? Never see his grandfather? All she could do was blow Rhys to pieces, that wasn't enough. It was nowhere near enough.  
  
Those that did get free, they had others to thank. Harper, Eliza, Alcott, Olivier himself not her. While it did help to know some of there were alive now, how was she supposed to make herself listen to those screams? She couldn't do that, she couldn't go through that again, even if it was just a memory. It was real enough in the moment to her, real enough to hurt her.  
  
Sniffling once and then quickly rubbing away a tear with her finger, Nadia managed a chuckle at the way he called her unusual and commended her for not trying to stab him. Ended up being the best thing for her actually, who knows how she'd have wound up. She was very afraid, but that didn't stop her, she couldn't allow it.  
  
His smile, which had made her think of a hyena or a shark the first time she'd met him, was more comforting now. Possibly because he wasn't grinning with his teeth, because instinct said that baring teeth was supposed to be a sign of aggression but anyways, she felt comforted by his attempt even more than he was by his actual words. Not that they weren't working, but actions spoke louder than words. She had moved on after her little ramble, gotten back to the subject, he could have ignored it but he hadn't. That meant a lot, like the fact he didn't think her naive. Maybe that was bothering her more than she let on, because even hearing it aloud once made her feel better.  
  
Smiling, Nadia took a sip of wine again before leaning forward to place it on the small table in front of the couch. Managing another giggle at the ludicrous ideas of being able to pinch guerrilla war lords subjugating people into submission and baking, she shook her head at Oli and then warned.  
  
"Just sit there, because I'm gonna hug you." That's more warning than she gave anyone else, really it was thoughtful of her. She made good on her warning too, she had to stand with her knees on the couch for good leverage but then she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and squeezed him into a hug.   
  
As Nadia pulls him in for a hug, he thinks about what she said earlier. Tony had to know he was loved when girls cuddle up to him like moth to flames. A cruel comparison, but Olivier lets it float away because if he swallowed it, cruelty gets its hands inside of him. It stews, sharpens and waits, waits, waits for that perfect moment to lash out, the moment it would cut the deepest wound.  
  
The warning nearly made him laugh. I'm going to care about you, and you are going to have to deal with it, phrased as a caution when it was much more a disclaimer of how things stand from now on. He'd made her feel better, and she wants to reciprocate, not merely show her appreciation. Whatever Nadia had meant with claiming cuddling as proof-of-affection, she's proving it now. She's even proving his own words on how to spite overwhelming evidence to the contrary she remains pure and full of light. He thinks she might be more stubborn than Tony is.  
  
(His brother swallowed everything about himself he'd ever heard said.)  
  
It seems to take him an incredibly long time to realize he wasn't hugging her back and seems to jump up, trying to squeeze harder to make up for it. Nadia's compassion was a blanket too warm for him to accept comfortably, but he tries to hold on to her for as long as he can anyways. No one had ever said Olivier D'Grey wasn't bloody selfish. Sweet Nadia, gazing up at him with tired, panic in her eyes - exasperation and relief rolled up into one with that ever-present anxiety that she was learning to be a monster. He's not sure how he can tell her that was the only thing he'd ever learnt to teach someone to be.   
  
He holds her tighter, promising her and himself he's going to make sure she was better than he ever was.   
  
It's not like he's asked her to save him: this was about her. He'd known what to tell Nadia to help her, he'd always had a knack at doing precisely that. Except, ironically, with his brother, but maybe that was because Tony knew exactly who had tutored that "knack" so -- even when Olivier was right, Tony was determined to make him wrong.   
  
(And if there was anything Tony did inherit from both parents the same as him, it was the ability to force the world to reshape to his command. The world says he's wrong? Nope, he's not wrong, the world's wrong, and he's rather change the world than admit he was wrong.)  
  
Pulling back with a tiny chuckle, he says lightly, teasing because he has to be teasing now, "You know, you hug like a koala bear. And for the record, if you've ever seen a koala when they're threatened...they're vicious little buggers you don't want to cross. Ever."  
  
Olivier was a good hugger, once he finally started to that was. Nadia liked that about people. She had taught a few people already how to properly hug. Draping your arms around a person and tapping their shoulders for a split second was an insult. There was a lot of power in a hug. And since she didn't think she could be too great with words, she tried to pass on the message through osmosis.  
  
She only knew about osmosis because Devin had once joked when he found her sleeping with her book as a pillow that she wasn't going to learn information through osmosis.  
  
She wasn't the only one sending osmosis messages.  
  
Pulling back with a smile and another wipe under her eyes, Nadia finds herself snorting and then giggling at the comparison. D'Grey boys. One called her a Panda bear, the other a Koala bear. Actually-  
  
"Hols would kill me if I didn't correct you- Koalas aren't bears, they're bear-like marsupials. But thank you...I think. Does this mean you've hugged a koala before and where are the pictures?"


	48. Naughty & Timeless (Just For You)

"A party!?" Blair exclaims, over the doorbell. Yeah, Rebecca should have thought of the fact she wasn't going to hear anything after those words. Sue her for being a little distracted; she was still waiting for Marcus to call her, jumping every time her phone vibrates.   
  
Surprised she didn't hear a request to join them, she tugs one strand of the long, black ponytail down and grins down, seeing Blair back near her feet, hand outstretched. The broach in her hand was two crossed candy canes covered in ten different kinds of glitter.  
  
"Aw, thank you sweetheart. You make this in school?"   
  
"Yup-ah! And Mrs. Carey said I was right that there wasn't enough glitter, so I added some of my own from the kit you got me--"  
  
"It's beautiful."  
  
Blair nods with such enthusiasm, you'd think Rebecca was giving *her* the present when she pins it over her dress. Proud smile on her face as she brushes off the glitter, she looks up and calls back down, brightly, "Hi Nadia! We'll be right down!!"

(&.)

"But I don't understand why we have to have a babysitter," Alec complained as he helped Rowland look for his ties. It wasn't that Rowland was getting old, of course not, but he if he could avoid hunching down and rummaging around the laundry dryer, then he did.   
  
"I'm ten years old, I can take care of Blair by myself," Alec continued, his voice echoing as he had his head stuck in the dryer, finally coming out with the red and green striped tie that Rowland had been looking for all day.  
  
"I know you can, Alec, but *I* would feel much more at ease having someone else around too, okay? Humor me?" Rowland took the tie from Alec's hand and kissed the top of his head before ruffling it affectionately. Alec ears pinked a little before he begrudgingly accepted, moving his father's hand away.  
  
"Fine, but you and mum will be receiving a written formal request on your desks," Alec nodded as Rowland grinned, slung the tie around his neck and moved out of the laundry room just in time to hear the doorbell ringing. Knowing how much Alec wanted to prove himself, Rowland gestured for him to open the door.   
  
Alec sighed but nevertheless walked to the door and after peering in the peephole opened it with a smile, his ears redder than before and suddenly Rowland understood why he was so adamant on appearing more mature.  
  
"Hi, Nadia."  
  
"Hi, Alec!" Nadia grinned and stepped forward, giving Alec a hug and then stepping away with a gasp, "how can you possibly be as tall as me already? You're huge!" Nadia walked in and unwrapped the scarf around her neck and Rowland called down from the stairs.  
  
"Hi, Nadia, we'll be down in a sec! Make yourself at home."  
  
Rowland finished when he reached the top of the stairs, heading to their room at the end of the hall, peering his head in first with a grin at the two most important women(/little girl) in his life, before walking fully inside.  
  
"Nadia's here."  
  
Rebecca checked the time, grateful to know she had a second to ask how Nadia was once she was downstairs.   
  
Blair wasn't going to be satisfied until the glitter got all over their pillows, evidently. Chuckling to herself, she turns to grab her purse and beams as her husband enters, tie slung around his neck.  
  
"You found it!" She points, unzipping the purse and starting to slip her makeup bag back in, grinning.   
  
"Yes I think Alec had to climb up a beanstalk to fetch it actually," he teased with a laugh and then kept the grin on his face as Blair ran over to him, spraying the room and him with glitter.  
  
"So he just stood up?" She teased him, putting the lipgloss on before she caps it again.  
  
"Daddy," Blair ran over so fast sometimes Rebecca swears their daughter has wings, tugging on Rowland's hand. Insistently. Oh, and there was glitter on him now too.  
  
"Will you save a dance for me?"  
  
"Of course, baby," he took both her hand and then twirled her around, humming Beauty and the Beast and then leaning down to kiss her forehead. If he didn't have glitter on him before, he definitely had it on him now.  
  
Blair giggles, raising her hands over her head and swirling around, bouncing as she does as he starts singing. Harmonizing, she goes on her toes, beckoning down with both hands after he kisses her so she could kiss his cheek too. She says brightly, "Yay! I'mma go say hello to Nadia --" and then sprints down the stairs.  
  
Rowland realized it was pointless to tell her not to run because by the time she had slipped out of his arms and he had opened his mouth to say something, Blair was already half down the stairs.   
  
"Oh, Becks," he looked up again with a grin, "have you seen my watch? The real posh fancy one?"  
  
"Hm? Oh yeah, it's uh--it was on the," she flaps her hand behind her, blinking as she sees glitter on her hands and gets distracted brushing it off.   
  
"Top left drawer of your nightstand." She finishes, giggling as she slips her lipgloss back away.   
  
Sighing, he shook his head and then snapped his fingers as Rebecca answers him.  
  
With a grin she walks over saying, "Oh hun, here--," she stifles another giggle brushing the glitter off his shirt and tie. Her fingers twist around the tie as she straightens it, then uses it to pull herself in to kiss him.  
  
"There you go." She grins, glad to be holding on to him. Considering everything they've been doing lately, she was glad for the little brief respite, glad to have an hour or two just with her husband. With an exhale, after she kisses his nose to, she grins at him and says comfortably, "I'm gonna see if Nadia needs anything else, yeah?"   
  
Slipping the watch on his wrist and fastening it secure with a small click, Rowland smiled thankfully, and in awe as always, at his wife before wondering aloud, "What would I do without you?" He kissed her back with the same smile on his lips, her gloss wiping off on him.  
  
"Sure, I'll be right down," Rowland nodded, "almost done here."  
  
She winks at him, then slips off, (pausing at the door only to shake out a quick dance move for him -- wishing they were going to a club dance instead).  
  
"Hey, Nadia, sweetie, thank you so much--," Rebecca stops at the end of the stairs. Blair was already up on the counter.   
  
"Ohivey." She breathes out, grinning and shaking her head.    
  
"-So what I'm doing now is actually building the bridges and at the science fair I'll hang a bucket from the middle and gradually add weight to prove how different bridges compare. I've hypothesized that the simple truss bridge is going to be able to stand the most weight at nearly 25 pounds."  
  
After hugging Blair tightly, Nadia blinked, looking at the balsa wood bridge that he pointed at (and admittedly, she was still a little lost from the previous description of the different types of bridges and force those bridges had to withstand), and then looked back to Alec, who was smiling shyly at her again.  
  
"That model is going to carry nearly 25 pounds before breaking in half? How is that possible?" Nadia grinned a little as Blair groaned next to her, obviously she had heard this a million times before.  
  
"Well, the force is distributed outwards in the direction of the beams-"  
  
Nadia would have continued listening (honest, she would have) but when Rebecca came downstairs, Nadia smiled again and then mouthed a 'sorry' to Alec before turning back to Rebecca with a grin.  
  
"It's no problem, I love these two. Alec was just telling me about his science project. He is crazy smart, and I was just telling him how he'll have admirers in no time. Girls love smart boys," Nadia looked sideways and restrained a giggle as his whole face began to go red. That was adorable, honestly.  
  
"Oh, but not too soon, of course," she added to Rebecca, knowing she definitely wouldn't want to talk of her babies growing up especially if she was anything like Nadia's own mother when it came to her children. Honestly, Nadia was surprised her dad had managed to convince her mom to let her babysit tonight.  
  
  
Taking one look at Alec's bright red ears (those were Rowland's fault, Rebecca laments with a mental tease) let's her know her smart son has one girl in mind at the moment and she beams, mouth opening in an "ah-oh", stretching wide before coming together with a smile.   
  
"Oh, yes, well -- she is right, Alec." And she taps the side of her nose as if to say Mother Knows (or "Rebecca Knows' but for him at least these two were interchangeable).   
  
"And I think," she kneels down, saying under her breath, "you should demonstrate it to Nadia. And look after your sister. We'll be home before you know it." She presses Alec into a brief hug, as long as he'd let her really.  
  
"Muuum," Alec mumbled a little, rubbing his cheeks but then he seems to take her suggestion to demonstrate very seriously, nodding along and then hugging her quickly, "I will. You can count on me."  
  
Leaning over, she pushes Blair's feet off the counter. Nonchalantly, as if she hasn't told her a half hundred times they eat up there and one of these days her father was going to leave her socks in the middle of her plate like he'd threatened (to a resounding chorus of giggles of course). Ruffling Blair's hair as she leans in to kiss her cheeks, (she still might be clinging to them extra hard but with Marcus out there, was it any wonder?), she says lightly, "You too, right? Promise me you'll be good for Nadia."   
  
"I promiseee," Blair inserts the promise into the theme of Beauty and the Beast, then cuts off to ask, "Alec, could you build a bridge that could hold me?"   
  
Then Alec starts frowning as Blair rushes over to the model bridges and Alec follows after her quickly, "Not out of balsa wood, I couldn't!" Alec was temporarily distracted from his embarrassment and then began actively contemplating a bridge that would hold his sister.  
  
Rebecca sighs, watching her hop off the counter and zooming over the examine the structure. Carefully, for all her teasing, Rebecca can see Blair wasn't actually touching it (she knew how important a project it was to her big brother). Of course, Alec goes to stop her too, and Rebecca just is left calling 'And I love you!' after them.  
  
Shaking her head, she turns back to Nadia and grins at her, waving off her 'of course.' "Really, thank you. I'd say you were a saint, but I know you hate that, so."  
  
Nadia chuckled and then grinned sheepishly, "Well, I also wanted to get out of the house. Mom is, understandably, smothering. And I am," Nadia answered preemptive my a small smile.  
  
"I'm okay."  
  
"Oh, that's wonder...ful." Halfway through the sentence, Rebecca seems to realize she hadn't actually asked her question if Nadia was doing okay yet. Nor did she seem surprised that Rebecca had known she didn't like being called a saint. Small smile appearing on her face, she arches up and turns to her.   
  
"You knew I was going to ask." It wasn't a question; unsurprisingly, Rebecca knew she was right. Comfortably, without taking her eyes off Nadia, she waits a second and then calls out as if in answer to Rowland (though he hasn't asked yet), "Seven-thirty. We should be able to eat first if we go now."  
  
And then she finds herself winking at Nadia, utterly intrigued and...well, maybe a bit happy, maybe bit more than happy, to have someone else in the house who Sees.   
  
Nadia nods, smiling still and tucked a hair behind her ear. She hadn't been able to do that before, or at least not as accurately or instantly. Her forte was still the crystal ball, whereas Rebecca, from what Alisha said, was able to divine on the spot. As she had just proven by answering Rowland's question while he was still upstairs. Nadia giggled.  
  
"Thank you!" Rowland called down, "Almost done!"  
  
Nadia turned back to Rebecca, undoubtedly curiouser but they did have dinner and a party to get to, "Have the kids already had dinner? Because I'm very handy...with a mobile for take out or peanut butter sandwiches."  
  
Rebecca chuckles as Rowland sounds supremely unsurprised that she's called up. Used to it, she imagines, or perhaps he just was getting pregonitive too. It might be their marriage. (Or that they've known each other for a hundred fifty years, maybe).  
  
Spinning back to cast another warm glance at her kids, she answers brightly, "They had some nuggets and biscuits earlier...and I'm sure they've a cache of secret chips," she chuckles but then adds more seriously, "if you could avoid take-out though, it might be better."   
  
Rebecca just didn't want to give Marcus any opportunities.   
  
Checking her purse, she adds a bit quieter, "If you ever want to come over so the two of us can talk more in depth...ring me anytime, all right? Day or night, you won't wake me." She grins a tiny bit, because she means -- well, she'll know if Nadia wants to call. That had been her first gift in the area, and she broke her first cellphone throwing it against the wall when she was upset to know she'd predicted it.  
  
"No problem," Nadia nodded without asking why because she felt some worry, maybe a little bit of fear behind the instruction, and she didn't want to meddle and definitely didn't want her to focus on that when they were going out! Date night was a very important thing after all.  
  
"Thanks, Rebecca," she nodded, smiling and now unsurprised she had been able to realize what had been running through her mind just a few seconds ago, "I will."  
  
Rowland came down the stairs after he had finished combing his hair, grinning as he walked forward to hug Nadia.  
  
"Hi darling, thank you for coming over," he pulled back and then slipped his arm around Rebecca's waist.  
  
"My pleasure!" Nadia nodded with a grin before she started counting off the list, "I've got your numbers on my mobile, as well as Kim and Jude's on the fridge door just in case, get them in bed by 10, don't order take-out, keep them away from the sodas, you'll be back before midnight otherwise you'll turn into a pumpkin, keep the windows and doors locked and don't open for anyone even Alec's precocious friend Jesse," who tried to look up her skirt last time, oi vey. Nadia smiles again.  
  
"Oh," she adds, "and no boys in the house. Did I miss anything?"  
  
  
"Not at all," Rebecca reports happily, slipping in to Rowland's embrace comfortably without a moment's notice. They fit that way. Nadia was looking comforted too now, which was a relief to her, and probably meant she'd calmed some worry too. Ironic. Truthfully, she'd offered to let her call because--well, *she* was curious! Seeing with the capital S was rare, so rare in fact she'd never met another one alive. Well, one with more than paltry tricks they usually profit from -- which Rebecca doesn't begrudge them at all. Tea leaves and crystal balls had never been her forte, but they were all equally strong branches of the same wondrous tree she's spent her life trying to understand.   
  
(Her own paltry trick tended to be knowing when the phone was gonna ring.)  
  
Bright-eyed, she shakes her head as she adds, "Though if Jesse climbs in, his mother's number is on the fridge too."   
  
Then she turns in Rowland's embrace, calling to them, "We're leaving, kids! We love you!", and being answered in kind as if an afterthought, which makes her chuckle. It isn't until she's outside, grinning as Rowland opens the car door for her as if it's a carriage that she turns to double check her shiver is just from the wind.  
  
(It was, dammit.)  
  
"Have fun!" Nadia called back as she watched them walk out of the door, waving before following the kids to see what they were up to.  
  
+.  
  
"You look stunning, you know." Rebecca teases, meaning every word. Rowland in the car seat still amazes her even all these years later; him doing anything he couldn't have done the era he was born in still amazes her.   
  
Rowland opened the car's left side for Rebecca with a stated 'my lady', before walking over to the driver's side, keys in hand. Closing the door, he grins at her compliment and then leans forward to kiss her quickly, saving himself by adding, "and you grow even more magnificent every day." Now could he be off the hook for doing nothing other than grin like an idiot when he had seen her? He thought so.  
  
Quietly, she adds as she undoes her top button, adjusting the radio for Christmas tunes, "And they'll be fine; they don't know anything, really."  
  
Starting the car after a nod, he pulled out of the driveway, "Yes, well I can't help but have my worry restarted, what with the 'slight hitch' in Paris."  
  
You'd think she would have gotten tired after thirteen years of him calling her milady, and yet, every single time she does she finds herself blushing apple red. With a giggle, she nods her head in gratitude before she gets in. Twisting her head sideways at his reference to her text, she exhales quietly, knowing they hadn't discussed her speaking to Marcus a few days ago, and not sure how to respond initially.   
  
(Maybe because she doesn't know how she feels either.)  
  
"I tracked him down," Rebecca states, calm and flicking at the hoop in her ear. "He wasn't seeking me out. He doesn't seek anything right now, he's stationary in his wants, arguably since he turned with a clear, obvious exception for when he gets bored. And he isn't bored now, I challenged that."   
  
Her words might be calm, but her expression wasn't, unable to speak about Marcus entirely calmly.   
  
Exhaling, she adds, trying to reassure him "I don't mean you're wrong to worry. I'm worried too. It's just...much more likely he'd come after us - I'm the one he wants."  
  
A small prideful smirk crosses as she adds, "The one who keeps slipping through his fingers."  
   
"Oh, that makes me feels loads better," he expresses, his tone of sarcasm only light as compared to other times and then chuckles after shooting Rebecca look. He would have kept looking at her but his eyes needed to be on the road as they drove. Rowland still rememeber learning to drive with Kim. Even to this day she told the time of when he screamed and jumped out of the moving car. In his defense, it was only moving at 15 kph.  
  
"And as proud as I am that's that true, seeking him out and antagonizing him further, Becks, I just...I don't see the point. Not to mention," he lifts a hand and then pokes her cheek without looking away from the road, "that smirk makes me nervous."  
  
As if Marcus wasn't antagonized enough, she knows is the underlying statement. Exhaling with a nod, she lifts her hand and reaches over to lay it reassuringly on his knee with an exhale.   
  
"He turned a girl, Stefanie, into a vampire. Admitted, she asked for it, and he's all caring about how she's doing now but--," she waves it off with her free hand and decides to let that suffice for the answer. Rowland knew her well enough to know how pissed she was about it.   
  
Softer, squeezing his knee she adds, smirk still in place, "My smirk makes you nervous? How so?"  
  
Rowland nodded, his jaw suddenly tight as he understood. He couldn't imagine -not- facing him if Rowland had been the one to know it instead. Curious as he was to know how exactly she came about the vision, he knew it wasn't the most important detail in the story right at this moment.  
  
"Demons run when a good man goes to war," he quotes with a little grin before adding, "in this case a woman. Though admittedly that's your naughty smirk, one only I'm used to bringing about so."  
The quote makes her smirk widen, flicking all the way up with a little giggle as she understands. And another giggle at the second half, nodding, "You're the only one to see that one darling."  
  
Rowland nodded once, as if to say 'good', except he couldn't voice it aloud because such possessiveness didn't come natural to him. Well, not usually, but that was due to a high sense of security. He and Rebecca had fought time itself to be together, not to mention Marcus already a century and a half ago, he wasn't worried about that. What he was worried about was Rebecca actively seeking out Marcus now, even if it came with reasons.  
  
But she knows he's right; it's when the good go to war, aka the pair of them, that vampires and dragons fall. Sighing, she adds as her thumb caresses his inner thigh.   
  
"Stefanie's staying with the D'Grey's, at least." She adds quieter, "She's doing...well, considering. But Marcus...he just, he had no regard..." As if that was shocking. Her nose wrinkles up as she glares at the window. "And I knew I--have the only advantage against him that's existed...what, a hundreds fifty years? He turned Tony's father too, in the twenties."  
  
"Sounds like him," he commented idly, good to know the girl was doing okay with the two brothers Rowland had met briefly. He highly doubted Marcus would have been a good mentor or provider after all.    
  
"Yes, but you don't want to compromise that advantage, Rebecca, that devil's smart, smarter than most. I worry because he's a fickle man, Rebecca, and the less time we, more importantly you, spend with him, the better. Until we can figure out how to get him out of our lives without killing him." Even though certain individuals, Jude he meant, would prefer Rebecca reconsider the no-killing rule.   
  
"He thinks he's smarter," Rebecca retorts, more against a mental Marcus than anything her husband said. Rowland was right. Of course he was, Marcus had centuries on them. She just pretended to.  
  
Rowland didn't doubt that was correct but he also knew better than to underestimate his intellect. The man was a slippery trickster with more cards up his sleeve than a house full of Stones trying to win a high stakes poker game.  
  
As they got to a stoplight and Rowland turned to face Rebecca again as he admitted, "I could barely breathe that day until you were home again, Becca."  
  
Quieter, she leans to kiss his cheek as he pulls to a stop and then rubs her lips, checking the gloss in the mirror to make sure Rowland wasn't all shiny. (There was already glitter all over them both after all.)   
  
"I know." She said. "Which is what I'm...trying to do. He doesn't get to...threaten my family--threaten *our* daughter, and then just go off and...ruin more lives."   
  
She bites her lip as she tries to rethink this, realizing she can hear the way he interjects pointing out that Stefanie was going to be turned already. She corrects under her breath, "Although Stef was dead inside already. Still. Doesn't excuse it."   
  
Her teeth dig back into her lip and she leans forward to lower the Christmas music so they could hear each other easier. She points out, "I can barely breathe any time I'm away from you any day, baby."   
  
She squeezes his knee.   
  
"But what am I supposed to do? He doesn't answer to anyone, least of all himself and--he thought about me. He thought about me before he turned her, she poisoned herself, he was proud about keeping technically to our agreement--when's the last time Marcus Ellwood kept to anyone's promise?"  
  
Relaxed more by her kiss to his cheek as well as the prospect of a nice evening out, he nodded to show that he agreed with her. After all, they agreed on most things except religion and airplanes (the devil's preferred method of travel in his opinion but shh), and they definitely agreed over their children's and family's safety.  
  
One hand dropped to the hand on his knee, squeezing it before bringing it up to his lips to kiss her knuckles, keeping his hands in hers as the light turned green.  
  
"Exactly, Rebecca, there's a reason he's listening to you and until it's proven otherwise, I'm going to assume it's because it suits him to.  
  
I know you understand him in a way I can't," he began with begrudging admittance, "but he believes you can reunite him with his lost love and if you can't he will..." A shiver ran down Rowland's spine that prevented him from finishing the sentence.  
  
"I know."  
  
Rebecca shivers too, and shakes her head quickly to try and toss it away.  
  
"He's listening because I didn't give him a choice to." It wasn't that Rowland was wrong, she just likes her phrasing better, squeezing his hand tighter. "And I know I can't reunite them, believe me, I know that..."  
  
She trails off, an undeniable wist in her voice as she relays. What's frightening to her, even as she keeps her eyes on Rowland and her hand in his, is she can't really tell if it's her desire or Marcus'.   
  
"Her name was Natalie," she says softly, "but he called her Tali. And I...I saw her, Rowland, I have every faith I can...I don't know, let her talk to him. She spoke to me. For a second. In that memory, which she just so happens to remind him she'll love him forever in-it can't have been coincidence."   
  
The sharp insistence in her voice was hot in her throat, because she doesn't want it to be.   
  
Quietly, she adds, "I don't want to be finding a way to kill him. That, however much it's justified for Jude...it doesn't feel victorious to me. But he won't go away, and he won't stop hurting people...what if I *can* help him, and he stops?"  
  
Rowland smiled briefly. He would have liked to believe that but he knew by now that everything was a choice, everything they did, and Marcus was not above that. He had chosen to listen, for once, and turning a young woman at her behest aside, Marcus had respected Rebecca's wishes. Clearly Rowland had a problem with this anyway you chose to slice it and dice it.  
  
"Does he? Here we are, a decade and a half since we last saw him, living together, happy...you don't worry that even the slightest bit of him has allowed himself to hope for the impossible?" Rowland purses his lips briefly before he corrects himself.  
  
"Or is that what you're hoping for yourself?" In a way, if Marcus even had emotions (Rowland knew he did, he just liked to pretend he didn't), there would be nothing crueler that they could do to him, Natalie communicating from across the years or from the dead would only be worse in the end for a guy like Marcus.  
  
"That is a gargantuan 'if', Becca," he sighed, wetting his lips as he contemplated this, "even if you could let her speak through you, which I have to admit I'm not too crazy about already, how do you know that would help matters?"  
  
"I asked him that." It's a sad, reluctant admittance, considering when she'd asked she'd phrased it as something he should be letting himself do. Only it wasn't in her mind impossible, the idea of them helping Marcus somehow, some way. He's the one who refused to save himself.   
  
Of course the second question was much more pertinent - because she knew Rowland doesn't particularly want to help him, and it's not like she blames him. How can she? She can't understand why she wants to herself.   
  
('Or are you reminding yourself?', he'd asked her).  
  
"He said he thought about it, and concluded I don't know everything. Which is true. But. I don't know, would him having a little bit of hope in the impossible be the worst thing? We did. Faith never let us down." She squeezes his hand again, then rubs at her eye with her free hand, quickly darting to check her make-up in the mirror.  
  
"Yes but we're us, and he's...him," he cleared his throat, thinking his foolproof explanation had sounded a lot smarter in his own head. The truth was that Rowland understood wanting to help someone instead of killing them, of course he did, but Marcus had gone after Blair and threatened their daughter. He threatened all of them and what was to stop him from hurting them on a whim simply because he was tired of waiting?  
  
She bites her bottom lip.  
  
"I don't know, how it could help him, but she loved him. If he could be reminded it wasn't one sided, had something to look forward to again..." She squeezes further and further, weakly yet, running her thumb over Rowland's pulse as she looks out the snowy window again.  
  
"Otherwise, I'm not sure that when he figures out all our secrets, he won't hurt us just to punish us for being so happy." It was blunt, and under her breath.  
  
His hand was losing some circulation from how tightly Rebecca was holding his hand but he didn't think to complain seeing as how it was the only thing keeping him tethered right now and focused on the road. The restaurant was still a few minutes out.  
  
Rowland sighed after she finished explaining, nodding solemnly. Alright, so it was help Marcus discover he had a heart or probable death. And behind number three was killing him, which him and Rebecca have already ruled out. Rowland had already killed before, and he didn't want to go through that again, or have Rebecca or even Jude have to go through too.  
  
"Still, no reason to seek him out until we do find a way. Doesn't he claim an overabundance of patience anyways?"  
  
"We're us and he's him...What does that mean?" She echoes, trying to have mercy on his hand now as she realizes how hard she's clinging to him. It was all there was to hold to in the moving vehicle, not that Rowland ever drove fast.   
  
"It means we're not bloodthirsty vengeful vampires for one," he added before pursing his lips, deciding he didn't like the sound of himself as he spoke those words. Rowland wasn't a judgmental person but he had a very good reason to be unfair towards Marcus. It was difficult to be the better person towards him and his evil smirk and black beady eyes.  
  
"I don't know," she mutters again uncomfortable, wishing she could stop, wishing with a vengeance she could know everything just for a split second so she could know what to do. "What do we do, go to Pharma? Admit we've broken the laws of Time to be together and by the way there's a homicidal vampire who may or may not be relying on me to let him and the love of his life somehow be together? I know Marcus has done terrible things just...if I was justified to try and take, his life, I must be justified to try and save it."   
  
She runs her free hand over her cheek and mumbles incoherently. When she hears 'Angels we Have Heard On High' on the radio she leans forward to raise it a little, wanting some part of the peace of the season to fill them too.  
  
Then she finds herself giggling incoherently, realizing I'm aloud, "Oh my God, I'm like the Ghost of Christmas Past."  
  
"I couldn't love you more for thinking that way, Becca. I love that about you, I love you," he squeezed her hand again and then exhaled, "I just wish he were out of our lives again." Would they ever really live in peace whilst they knew he was out of there? Looking over his shoulder whenever he left the house was not a way to live. While he had all the faith in the world for his wife and her skills, what he didn't have faith in was Marcus.  
  
"I don't recall that ghost being quite as sexy," he teased, taking a left.  
  
No, they weren't that. Quietly, she can't help but say, "Part of the reason he's so vengeful is because everyone expects him to be and attacks him until it's self-preservation. Which is no excuse, I know..."   
  
And when she thinks back to Portia, who had done nothing and Jude, when he lost her, when he went to get in between Anthony and Flora to save her and wound up with a sword through his abdomen... the rage was still there, burning beneath everything.   
  
"Maybe I do know that talking to her would be just as much a punishment for him as a reward. I do, know that actually--I do know that." Oh, she does. But oh! Wasn't that what she promised him? Just as he didn't technically kill Stefanie? Hope? And hope can be a bitch.  
  
"But I do know he's suffered everyday he's stayed on this planet without her...and I know how much pain I was in only spending ten months away from you, luv."  
  
As unhappy as that memory was, what he said next (and Rowland saying sexy in the first place) spreads her smirk wide.  
  
"Well, I'm a timeless adaption of it babe. Naughty just for you, time traveling just for you."

 


	49. Sunlight

Olivier knew Lyndsi was in the room too - but anyone who thought that Harper wasn't going to share everything with his wife was, well, an unobservant idiot. (Politely). They were worse than idiotic if they thought Harper would help if they kept him from his wife (or rather: could, keep them apart for five minutes). Olivier stands with his hands behind his back in what he was dubbing the bar, though he was in Brackner manor because there was an extensive liquor collection (and a pool table).  
  
 "You know what I've come to notice about you, Harper? Your genius isn't blatant. It might be all people talk about, might be what people expect - the grand potions and spells, the wands...but that isn't it." Olivier trails off, with a smirk like you see on the television when someone realizes they know the answer to a million dollar question.   
  
"It's subtle, your genius. You're subtle -- and above all, even against all extreme, unreasonable and irredeemable odds, when you have no reason to be...you're patient. Or am I wrong to think that the nudge, the catalyst to the pack finally snapping, mutinying on my friend Hans, came from you?"  
  
"That's all they talk about? That's quite dull." He chuckled briefly as he poured their guest a drink, (which was equal parts hospitality and just a reason to drink; he really had missed liquor), turning to offer it to Olivier as he listened to his analysis. Subtle, now that was an adjective no one had thought to associate his intellect with. He was curious, and after offering his wife a drink as well with a quick wink, he finally poured one for himself.   
  
"A subtle and patient Brackner? Previously, I would have said such a thing didn't exist." Though even before his fake death, Harper was the black sheep of his family. Oddly enough, he didn't find himself actually fitting in his own family until he met Lyndsi. She made him the better man.   
  
Looking away from her, as his gaze always found itself back to her soon enough, Harper looked back to Olivier. The accusation, or rather insinuation given that it wasn't hostile, that wasn't expected.  
  
"We'll you're not wholly incorrect," his lips flickered, "but what lead you to believe so?"  
  
Lyndsea had a quick blush rising in her cheeks, Olivier noticed as a heady scent strikes his nose and turns up the corner of his lips. It's only the first moment he smiles because of hunger; then he thinks of how nice it had to be to be with someone for so long and still have them blush when you wink. (Speaking of subtle enjoyment.)  
  
Admittedly, the husband and wife were likely enjoying a second honeymoon period. What was coming back from the grave to the love of your life if not an aphrodisiac? (Barring emotional damage.) Olivier gave it two months at most before Lyndsea was pregnant.   
  
He accepts the drink with a small 'thank you' and grateful nod, though he mutters spells to check nothing was slipped into it.   
  
"Ah, well, I haven't met enough Brackners to make such a judgment, but..." Olivier flicks a glance at Lyndsea. She chuckles.  
  
"But if I'm any indication, he's right?" Lyndsea quips after a sip herself.  
  
"I wouldn't ever dare tell your husband he was wrong about anything."   
  
Lyndsea's lips purse in a way that plainly says that was one of the smarter judgments she'd ever heard. Olivier takes a sip before he returns to his original thought.   
  
"The nature of the split." 'Not incorrect,' how quaint. "Just that it worked out nicely, only having the limited number of potions in the end?"   
  
Harper chuckled, his wife's brazen and blunt response served only as an attestation to his previous statement. A small smirk rose on his lips, in amusement and smug pride before nodding in agreement, to both of them. On probability and past experience alone, Harper was more than likely to be right.  
  
"Yes I suppose the fact that the one ingredient I needed to make the potion was limited to precisely the amount of people in Hans'...inner circle, plus an add itional for my son, turned out to be quite convenient." He lifted his drink to his lips and took a sip, looking at the man over his glass.  
  
"It's never a good idea to pick favorites." Even less of a good idea to treat your favorites like shit, but he digressed. And while he wasn't personally familiar with the pack hierarchy common amongst werewolves, there was a fine line between a leader and oppressor. He digressed once more.  
  
Lyndsea couldn't help her small, but obviously smug look as Harper walks him through technicalities. As if they weren't exactly mirroring the thoughts Olivier already hard. (Which Harper knew, clearly. It was what made talking with the man so entertaining.)    
  
He thinks the smirk widened on hearing Harper say 'my son', the clear trait of smug pride rampant in this family (oh, was he only proving Harper's initial point once more?)  
  
"Convenient? Oh Harper, don't undersell yourself. I'm not a man who believes in such coincidences "   
  
Lyndsea murmurs something, and as Olivier had no choice but to overhear he feigns asking while cupping a hand to his ear.

"I only said," Lyndsea repeats for courtesy's sake, clearly unfooled, "that I would prefer he not undersell himself either." She reaches for her husband's hand. 'See, even Olivier D'Grey says so,' is actually what she said, but he supposes he digressed.  
  
"This is quite good, by the way. Merci." He takes another sip.   
  
He took Lyndsea's hand with a simple smile as she repeated herself for Olivier even though they were all well aware that the man could hear that and more as part of his genetics. Harper squeezed Lyndsi's hand, before lifting his head and correcting.  
  
"I wasn't underselling myself, I'm just not eager to brag about it, given that Hans is your friend. That's not to say he didn't have it coming. And you're welcome." He took another drink.  
  
Lyndsea squeezes his hand back, and if Olivier isn't quite mistaken (something he never is), she slips her thumb beneath his palm and starts rubbing a circle smooth and soft against Harper's pulse.   
  
"Oh, I don't disagree." Olivier said, though not quickly, "He also, has disappeared as of this moment." Taking another sip, he turns away from the mantle and moves to set the glass down on the green felt. His eyes track along the cherry wood, thinking it looked fresh polished and imagines they must be playing with all the luxuries, and rightfully so.  
  
"Which I, personally think will be good for him. And definitely will be good for your boy. ...Though I did end up with his sister as a house guest, but." He shrugs.  
  
He finds himself breathing even easier, though he wasn't in what you would call an upsetting situation (he had a higher tolerance for the unpleasant), when Lyndsi's thumb began to rub small circles in his palm.   
  
Harper didn't feel it in good manners to tell Olivier that he personally didn't care what would be good for Hans or not, but at least he was gone, hopefully for a long time.   
  
"So Antonio mentioned," he nodded, tapping his fingers against the glass. "He called with concerns and I suppose to measure how far my genius could go."  
  
"You would be correct. It seems that particular ability only works on myself." Rising from the dead, and only very loosely speaking. As it was, he had already talked this through with Tony after the man went through such efforts to contact him.  
  
His eyebrows arched with his brief chuckle as Olivier answered apart from the girl being deceased, she was perfectly fine. Lyndsi didn't flinch but he could tell she was not amused, and that it wasn't her physical health that his wife was asking after.   
  
"I can't revive her. If it were only as simple as restarting her heart, but it's reviving all the organs, all the cells, all of the processes, which would involve intensive neurological work. And even if I could do all of that, how do I take away the vampire aspects? Without any research, based on what I know, I would say that vampirism is irreversible.  
  
As far as what I could do to help?" He pursed his lips, racking his brain and then lifted the hand that held the glass, finger raised.  
  
"The potion that allows her to walk in the sunlight, I could make that permanent for her, if you can vouch for her."  
  
"Lucky for me." Lyndsea says, unconsciously perky. Without making such a joke, she risked falling into the dark abyss she spent the last nine years (oh, all right there were moments of light, but always as if through a glass filter).   
  
"Quite." Olivier chuckles, even if without true amusement. It was just as he'd asked -- or rather assumed that Lyndsea would double check for him. He listens, easily following, considering he'd seen all of this up close and personal once before. Admitted, his father had not wanted to change back.  
  
"You would also face the issue that she has no intention of revival herself." Olivier adds, mildly even as he thinks in private that he would never take that choice away from her. As Olivier D'Grey, he would never say he was particularly a stalwart proponent of personal agency -- but, well, was it so surprising he wouldn't interfere with someone so eager for death, power or strength?   
  
His thoughts stop in his tracks at Harper's last words. Even Lyndsea looked mildly surprised - at least, her thumb stopped it's slow circle.  
  
"You could?"   
  
Aha, see? Harper wants him to make the choice. Olivier stalls, still mild as he turns it over in mind.  
  
"I had no idea," well he had some idea, "you trusted me so. After all, our pact died the moment we both were free." He curls a brow, surveying the married couple with interest and curiosity.   
  
"You would take my word for it?"  
  
"One I brought up to your brother first and foremost." It had not surprised Harper to hear discontent from Tony's voice when he first expressed that with out Stefanie's explicit consent, he could do very little if not at all. But there was something he could do after all, something that took even Lyndsi by surprise.  
  
"You've trusted me with your brother, and I've trusted you with my family," sort of, in both occasions but if was close enough, "and it's no secret that you want what's best for Antonio." Now whether that was being executed properly was a whole other issue, but one that he would not meddle in further than he was already involved.   
  
"Stefanie is a guest in your home, not only for the amicability you have with her brother as well as personal fee lings but also because quite simply Antonio wants her there. And despite the complications and confrontations a newborn vampire would bring about, she's still a guest in your home. I would think, or hope, you have a certain amount of trust in her. I just want to know if that trust is enough that she won't abuse it."   
  
In laymen's terms, of which there were none present at the moment, he just wanted to know this woman wasn't going to roam the streets in broad daylight unchecked and literally suck the life out of people.  
  
He wasn't exactly done, but the next was mostly in humor, mostly.  
  
"And I trust you know by now that in my bad graces is exactly the place you want to avoid."  
  
Olivier wasn't sure he actually trusts Tony with anyone for long (sometimes least of all his self, as his little brother did have that oh so martyr personality trait at times), but he supposed it matched the amount that Harper had ever actually trusted him with his family.  
  
Lyndsea was arching his eyebrow at him, questioning, so Olivier gives her a small smile as he offers, "If things had gone south, I would have insured you and your son were out of the country."  
  
It didn't seem to take her by surprise by the fact so much as the fact he'd stated so plainly, as she immediately guesses, "So your concern for Stefanie's agency is a true privilege, then?"   
  
"She should be flattered." It was at least half a joke, and they both laugh. And yet during the entire exchange, Olivier was still turning it over in his mind. Would he trust Stefanie to be restrained with that level of freedom? Sure he had been giving her the potion, but had she slipped up she would have been forced to come home, stay inside...  
  
(Though Stefanie, having killed once already, seemed determined to die rather than 'slip up' once more.)  
  
And of course, Harper touched upon the heart of the issue. As he smirks, Lyndsi leaned into her husband's ear and kissed the rim of it, before Olivier continues, wry.  
  
"You noticed that, did you?" It wasn't like Tony's attachment to Stefanie was particularly subtle. "Honestly, he has no intention of letting her go, whatever he says."   
  
"...Is that worrying you?" Lyndsea asked, as ever astute. Olivier chuckles once.   
  
"My baby brother and the kid sister of one of my oldest friends who recently became a vampire?" With a particular affection for his blood, he seems to say. "Why should I be worried?"  
  
"If you don't think you should be, you'd be an idiot." Lyndsea echoes his sarcasm, grinning just as small.  
  
 "Thank heavens I'm not then."   
  
Lyndsea holds Harper's hand tighter as she laughs once.  
  
"But in answer to your question. I have never met a newborn with more control, Harper, from apparently sheer stubbornness. It's also a heightning of her control freak personality, and to spite my brother, but honestly--she's still going to Catholic mass every Sunday." Olivier quirks his lips up.  He jokes easily, "And just to clarify--so it is, above all, for Antonio you would do this."   
  
He grins wider at the remark, nodding graciously.  
  
"As you are aware you should not be in mine."  
  
That was more than fair of him, Olivier thinks. (Lyndsi barely restrains rolling her eyes.)  
  
Oh that's right, he hadn't told Lyndsi about that particular detail, mostly because he had been too busy enjoying the fact that it had never become necessary, save the help Olivier provided before they even made the deal, to win Harper's favor, or at least make him feel like he owed the man something. That had been Harper's perception of Olivier D'Grey at first and the more Harper knew about him, the more the perception changed. Nothing too drastic so far, however.  
  
He offered a brief chuckle, more polite than anything as he wasn't really amused, he guessed none of them were. Taking another small of his liquor (he needed to build up tolerance again he had found out) to hide a small feeling of abash as Lyndsi kissed his ear.  
  
Harper could tell from Antonio's voice that this wasn't a light issue for him. If he believed otherwise, he wouldn't be offering. He chuckled at Lyndsi's sardonic response, immediately reaffirming the fact that she could go toe to toe with Olivier any day, and squeezed her hand again before looking forward and listening to Olivier vouch for the young woman but he hit the nail on the head. He was doing this for Antonio.  
  
"What can I say? You D'Greys grew on me." He paused and then deliberated with a smirk. "Like fungus."  
  
"We have a talent in that area." Olivier chuckled as he went to pick his glass up. It was surprising him, whatever he said, but then 'courting' (as it was) Harper had never been by-the-book.   
  
"So did the Brackners on me really."   
  
The thought turns in his mind over another sip, and he waits with a small smile turned away as Lyndsea and her husband exchange some private moments. He'd say they were like teenagers, but he gets it. And besides, it was a mash up of puppy love and genuine concern for the physically and emotionally traumatized -- and Olivier would never call Harper prepubescent. He was a combat veteran. And in her own way, so was Lyndsea. Getting poisoned was no picnic.   
  
(Tony would know).  
  
He raises a finger, "I won't take responsibility for what Stefanie does, but. That is my honest opinion of her. As is the fact that I think treating her like a child or a lost cause will only give her more reason to become both."  
  
Tony would get that contrary soul too or rather, he should.   
  
"And that would be..."  
   
Lyndsea supplies, soft.   
  
"A tragedy." Olivier smirks, nodding as he finishes off his drink, but his eyes went wide as he seemed to understand something. He'd excuse himself with a thank you, asking to be notified when the potion was ready--as if the moment they were alone he wasn't sure the couple would be in each other's arms again and wouldn't want an audience.   
  
"Yes, it would."   
  
Speaking of...he needed to talk to his brother.  
  
  



	50. Boyfriend

**Stefanie:** *He bets?! What the hell. He actually had bet (all right truthfully) that she was going to hope he was worse than her brother's friends. Eyes roll up, she blinks once. When she speaks, her words and manner were the height of proper sophistication. (Well. Mostly.)* Oh, I'm so sorry, I did not mean to make light of your condition, suesser. *As she watches him hand the euro over, she pulls back and flips her hair over her shoulder, huffing.* Well. I wouldn't be insulted you bet on me, but for that _little_? *Her hand braces her hip and she narrows her eyes at Tony.* I should hit you.

 **Tony:** Gesundheit.

 **Leo:** *throws his head back in a laugh. Yeah the word did sound like a sneeze.*

 **Tony:** I wasn't going to swindle any more money from my friend.

 **Leo:** Jury's still out on 'friend'. *eyebrows rise* Any _more_?

 **Tony:** It was a pretty sure bet, my scruples kept me from making too high a stake.

 **Leo:** Don't choke on that high vocabulary, now.

 **Stefanie:** Forgive me for the term of endearment - I don't know what I was thinking. *Her hand goes up in the air and she spins forty degrees on her heel before she looks back. The spin was mostly to hide her chuckle under her breath. She arches her eyebrow at Leo's classification, unable to help herself from asking,* Why, what'd he do?  
  
*It wasn't because she didn't like the implication that Tony had to work for friendship. Or okay, it wasn't only because of that because seriously, didn't he work hard enough?*  
  
I would say I'm surprised on the dimmer switch scruples, Antonio, but... *Her hand flaps again.*

 **Tony:** It's okay, we all make mistakes. *he nods, giving his forgiveness.*

 **Leo:** You mean apart from disappearing without a trace for four years?

 **Tony:** Was it four? *he scratches his head. Huh, how about it. It had been four years .*

 **Leo:** Yeah, it was four.

 **Tony:** Full naming me? *he tsks tsks* Now what did I...*smirks* do right?

 **Leo:** *snorts*

 **Stefanie:** *She laughs, unable to help herself again and swivels, skirt flying as she leans back against the metal balcony railing. Then her eyes widen.* Four yea--you didn't tell him where you were going for four years!? What's wrong with you!?  
  
*Like you did to Ansel?, a nagging, irritating part of her mind reminds her and she folds her arms on her chest. Better to think that than the truth. -Like Hans did to me?-.  
  
But then she's smirking as she adds,* Right? Oh, I don't know, haven't you just gone and won money assuming I'd prefer your inner bad boy? Now that, *her lips twitch,* I have plenty of ..mnm, delicious stories for evidence but - *she looks at Leo,* I'd prefer yours.

 **Leo:** Do you want the list alphabetically, chronologically, or by severity?

 **Tony:** Ouch! *places his hand over his heart* I was going through some shit, ok ay? Lay off me.

 **Leo:** Ah, no, not exactly. I said to him that you couldn't be any crazier than the women I've dated, and I took his 'wanna bet' literally.

 **Tony:** *He grins* It was a sure bet, I'm telling you! I mean, no offense, but with you being a self-chosen vampire and all, that battle was already half- won.

 **Leo:** *His eyebrows rise* Sorry to disappoint you cherie, but my supply of 'delicious Tony stories' is nil.

 **Tony:** Rude. Remember that one night me and you picked up a pair of twins?

 **Leo:** *slow grin* And swam in a chocolate fountain?

 **Tony:** *laughs* I was preeetty delicious then. So were they.

 **Leo:** Yes they were. *he nods* Until their older brother came along. *Snorts* I'd never seen you move so fast.

 **Tony:** It's hard to run when you're half naked and covered in chocolate.

 **Leo:** But we managed.

 **Tony:** We always did. *he grins, patting Leo's shoulder and then shrugging*

 **Stefanie:** I prefer spontaneous. *Her chest puffs out as she says that, words airy. It made her smile though, to hear the words 'self-chosen vampire' with nothing but a grin on Tony's face.* And oh, I don't know...I think if my asking you to be worse than my brother's friend is the craziest you've ever dated...then honey, you haven't seen anything. *She shrugs her shoulder and then pulls her arms off again, resting them to her sides. Her words were casual,* Though Tony you do have to admit, as I can stand here just fine and untempted, this is far from crazy.  
  
*By the end of the story, she starts chuckling loudly- maybe too loudly, but goddamn was that a great image.* ...damn. See! You do have good stories. I am _all_ ears.

 **Leo:** *eyebrows rising a moment, he chuckles and shakes his head* Well, honey, I have seen worse. I prosecute criminals, after all. I just haven't dated worse. Then again I'm used to your garden variety clingers, criers, obsessives, and just the slightest bit cuckoo.

 **Tony:** An old girlfriend of his used to keep his jizz in the fridge.

 **Leo:** You really like bringing that up.

 **Tony:** That's pretty insane.

 **Leo:** Yeah, *turns to Stefanie* but asking your boyfriend' s childhood friend to be worse than the jerks who most likely hit on you, objectified you, and tried to take advantage of you since you started growing curves? *He hisses, tilting his head and shrugging* That's messed up even as a joke.

 **Tony:** *Well that was Leo, blunt and forward and lacking some sense of humor. Tony corrects* I'm not her boyfriend.

 **Leo:** *He smirks* Right, whatever. Her not-boyfriend then, sorry.

 **Tony:** And technically *raising a finger* you're only assistant prosecutor.

 **Leo:** Since when are you into technicalities?

 **Tony:** *He shrugs* I have my days, as we all have our days. In sanity, or out of it. Just so happens we're in! *pumps his fist* Good.

 **Leo:** And no one is more glad than me for the lack of temptation. I've been fed off before, not pretty.

 **Tony:** *snorts, his arms crossing* A story for another time.

 **Leo:** *he shakes his head* it's not that long a story. *And he could tell Stefanie was a little curious* And she's asking for some!

 **Tony:** Yeah, stories that involve -me-, she doesn't want to know you as a person, she wants to know you as what you are to me and what she can garner from you for me. *smirks*

 **Leo:** Did you know that studies show that the planets are starting to alter their orbits? Yeah, it seems that there's something growing much denser than our sun.

 **Tony:** *He rolls his eyes and gestures with his hand for Leo to get on with it as he explains, knowing where this was going*

 **Leo:** Tony's ego.

 **Stefanie:** I am anything but garden-variety, I'll cop to that, sir. *Her smirk was moving, more tall than wide as she weighs the look on Tony's face against the more obvious admissions of his heartbeat. (He could control that too when trying. Stefanie would never forget that. No wonder he was such an expert liar.)  
  
Her eyes suddenly shoot back to Leo adding,* She -what-?! *Because she couldn't just not comment on that. How did you not comment on the fact that someone kept his 'jizz' in the refridgerator?! Now she did whack Tony (lightly, the back of her hand on his shoulder; considering their habits, it's a loving tap).* You think I'm crazier than that?!   
  
*Oh, there was a trigger word. Boyfriend. The word Olivier was so proud of being with regard to Daniella. Her lips press together, nails digging back into the railing and she says lightly,* Worse than my brother's friends is what I said -- who do you think my brother was friends with?! -- *her finger presses to Tony's lips,* Tony, don't answer that.   
  
*Her nose wrinkles up adorably again, but as the question turns to her temptations it softens.Really, she had not known Leo even knew she was a vampire, but now she smiles slightly. Even if it was 'not pretty' - she thought, at least he'd been open to the idea. So she smiles wide and sweet, mostly even honest as she answers.* I do not want just stories about him.

*It was a hot protest, her gold hair flipping over her shoulder and stilettos clicking on the tile.* Maybe if he was my boyfriend - so impressive of you, by the way, figuring out if I'm single or not, *she shrugs a shoulder, now eying only Leo but her chest was moving with unnecessary stolen breaths,* - but I would love to hear this story, Leo, either way.

 **Tony:** I am so telling Amalie you called her garden-variety by the way. Which of the three does she fit in?

 **Leo:** *easily* Obsessive.

 **Tony:** *he snorts, sha king his head* Wait-

 **Leo:** About her work.

 **Tony:** Okay, that makes more sense. *nodding*

 **Leo:** Can we get past the semen in the fridge?

 **Tony:** Gladly. *he smirks as Stef hits him and shrugs* It's different kinds of crazy.

 **Leo:** *He laughs and then he smirks* Teenage boys, obviously.

 **Tony:** Ah. German, pureblood , teenage boys.

 **Leo:** So probably arrogant, self-entitled, horny, boys. *he nods* And statistically, you've probably been sexually harassed. Cat-calling, whistling, ass-grabs, leers-

 **Tony:** *pointing as he explains* Leo here did his law school pro-bo hours on sexual harassment lawsuits.

 **Leo:** Still do. If you're looking for a bad-boy friend, I'm not it.

 **Tony:** That doesn't mean he's not an ass.

 **Leo:** I can't be too perfect.

 **Tony:** You're perfect to me, sweetie.

 **Leo:** Why thank you, darling.

 **Tony:** *smooches the air*

 **Leo:** *He winces and then warns* I did say it's not pretty right?

 **Tony:** Leo. *He gestures to himself, placing a hand over his chest, as if that could return a normal heartbeat* Notre Dame.

 **Leo:** *groans, throwing his head back and looking up* Ugh, that' s been such a nightmare.

 **Tony:** well go on with the story, go on!

 **Leo:** *Looking at Stef now, as Tony already knew, he explains.* Tony left Paris when he was 17, he told me about -that- at least, but I didn't ask where to, for the best. About a day or two later, I get intercepted by these two vampires while I was in the city. Asking if I knew where Tony was because his father hadn't seen him in days. Nothing too rough, just a little shakedown, try to scare the information out of me. I guess one of the vampires was relatively new because he couldn't hold himself back, he tore into my shoulder *he gestured* and the phrase 'eat you up' has just never had the same ring to it.

 **Tony:** *snorts* Tell me about it.

 **Leo:** Anyways, after the other vampire managed to wrestle him off me, they left. I used to be a pretty important person, before the crippling debt that's torn our family name to ruins. *He smirks, shrugging*

 **Stefanie:** *Contrary to everything she'd said (pft, oh how typical was that? when she was being sassy and snippy and a wise-ass making insensitive remarks?) -- the more Leo spoke now, the more she was realizing she liked him. So when he said she'd be disappointed if she was looking for a bad boy, she grins (a soft, silky thing) and shook her head.* Too tell you the truth, Leo, I think I have all I could ever want in a bad boy in my life already.  
  
*Her eyes dart to Tony, expression lifting as if to say she meant him (even though really between Tony, Hans, Ansel, Olivier, and then there was Marcus -- well, most people would have been committed by now).* Also? I'm a model - so basically, I decided if they were going to harrass me like that, I'd damn well better be getting paid at least.   
  
*She was half teasing, but adds seriously,* Good for you, though. *Then her gaze darts back, riveted. Stefanie does a pretty good job, she thinks, of acting as if she didn't know already that Tony had left for school in such spectacular fashion. The fact was she had visited the manor once with her father and Marcel after -- and she shudders at the memory; it was eerie. Remington had not acted like Tony ever existed at all. It had been Olivier that told Stefanie where he was (rather, "college" was not actually an answer -- but the hurt in Olivier's eyes and gruff tone had kept her from answering further).   
  
With a grin to herself, she thinks lighter, it wouldn't actually have mattered if she'd been to the manor or not. Tony actually had told her everything. (She misses him.) Her face freezes in horrified sympathy as the story continues.* Oh God. *She exclaims, hand over her mouth, and then lowers it, * Honestly? I'm...not sure what's more disturbing. The...attack, not pretty indeed, that's horrible -- or...*she turns to Tony, brow popping up, eyes locked on his and painted lips slightly apart as she looks, hearing his heartbeat to steady herself* the idea Remington hired vampires to send after you.   
  
*Remington, because that monster didn't get to call himself Tony's father. That was clear in her voice.  
  
She looks back to Leo and adds lighter,* Also? That story was still about Tony somehow; in the interest of proving scientific articles wrong, as that sounds fun, I entreat you for a story about  _just_ you. The more, *her hand curls under her chin, bright-eyed,* deliiiicious the better.  
  



	51. A Natale Watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (It's a goddamn Christmas Miracle)

Audrey didn't understand how she had wronged the universe so badly. In all her 17 years here, what had she done wrong that was so terrible that she would be subjected to such torture? Oh she didn't mean having to interact with Antonio this time, surprising enough. Audrey wasn't even referring to the condition of her home life and the fact that she had been working 18 hours straight, using her breaks to check in with things at home. No, she referred to the fact that here she was, filling in at a theater house because the manager was a friend of hers and called to let her know they were short staffed for the evening, and who would show up but Olivier D'Grey.  
  
Pompous, arrogant, incredibly wealthy and currently flaunting it Olivier D'Grey. She wept, if her body was capable of producing any tears but she had it on good authority that she produced venom instead, for England. You would think him being half a Frenchman would earn him some animosity over here but that wasn't the case. He had helped England's recently beloved super-genius Harper Brackner, so he was growing to be equally beloved in the posh crowd.  
  
In every single interaction the two of them have had up to this point, they had met as equals. Now dressed in an usher's uniform as she showed elegantly dressed people to their seats, whenever they broke off from their adoring gaggles around the man, there was a clear power imbalance. And if she wanted to get paid, she better keep smiling and wish Mr. D'Grey enjoy the show and have a good evening.  
  
(She was currently budgeting in her head to see if she could afford to or not.)  
  
"I did warn you--!" Olivier was in the middle of laughing off the absurdities (and advances) of Bosignori's tale when he felt the unmistakable buzz in his tuxedo's breast pocket alerting him to a text message. Considering he had told both Maxwell and the Delwineys not to disturb him tonight, unless it was his brother (or girl, perhaps) he couldn't see such an alert as anything but poor news. England had recently taken to opening their arms to him, and he had been taught to not turn away any potential friend, (well, "friend") no matter how degenerate--so he'd seen no harm in accepting the invitation. It was the least, he felt, he could do for Harper Brackner who had helped him so--accept the gratitude and goodwill freely offered. Now, as his phone alerts him to a problem, he excuses himself. He hands James an extra fifty euroes for his trouble in seating them and insists that the best return for his money he could be given was that James continue serving his many esteemed English guests while he was absent, among who included the mayor of this town, two different agents off the farm and the countries Treasury secretary.     
  
Then he slips out the door of the theater's private box, gluing his cell phone to receive the message. His joviality fell off in an instant before he groans, having to fight a sudden urge to throw his phone against the wall. It's not as if he doesn't have the money to replace it.    
  
Killian, who has only just arrived at the box (one of the leading investors in the hotels in the area) -- looks at him with concern and Olivier wipes off his face. When his hand is clear, his mouth has returned to a smirk.    
  
"I leave the country for one day." He offers as the only explanation, because he's not ready to admit the potential situation occurring in Paris and knows better than to admit to anything. Then he gestures to their box's door, abruptly stalled when he realizes he recognizes one of the ushers inside. A light, incredulous smirk appears on his mouth.   
  
"I'll be right inside," he offers the man and nods his head, barely registering whatever Killian takes it to mean as he frees himself from the gaggle of admirers to stall Audrey mid-work.    
  
His question to her is perfectly polite.    
  
"Excuse me, miss, might I have a word?" His smile is genuine, at least.  
  
Why didn't he at least have the decency to ignore her like a good upper class snob? Audrey turned away from an elderly couple she had been helping seat, her ponytail snapping in the air, and managed to keep the smile up as she beheld Olivier,  
  
"Certainly, sir," her words said but her eyes were playing a different tune of a more vulgar variety, suggesting exactly what he could have instead of a word and where he could put it.  
  
"How may I help you?"   
  
Waiting (perhaps a bit impatiently, but he was used to being received promptly) as she aids the other couple to sit, Olivier feels his smirk flick up at the dripping sarcasm she utilizes in her equally polite response. Ah, yes, well Audrey, he wants to say, I didn't simply 'inherit' this position without work. Though to be sure it was a different kind of work than she used.    
  
(Or maybe not, hence why he felt the need to speak to her, whatever his responsibilities to the men and women who fool themselves into thinking they're important in his private box).   Still, his clear response of, "In private?", let's Audrey know (he hopes) he has received her unspoken insult. (And discarded it.)    
  
When they had slipped to the side, he unfolds his arms to spread the bottom of his jacket as he asks, "First, grazie." He nods. "Secondly, have you heard of a girl called Cecily Favreau?"    
  
He presumed she was aware of any supernatural -- be they vampire or werewolf in his city, as she's demonstrated, but perhaps not.  
  
Her arms crossed in front of her chest as they walked far enough in the hallway to be considered private, Audrey didn't expect to anything akin to mocking (that would be his no good brother), or an apology (that would mean he had shame and believe he owed one), but she also wouldn't have guessed that he would ask her about some girl.  
  
Why? Should she have known her? With a name like that she was French, and Audrey's trips to Paris were limited to the manor and back (but the nighttime there is something she'd always wanted to try and would soon). Still, Audrey wondered why he thought she should know about some girl in Paris. Did she perform dark magic too?  
  
"No, can't say I have." She wasn't psychic either, if he thought that was part of what she did. But as she thought of what she usually did know, Audrey filled with a dread and a cold that had her closing her eyes with an intake of breath. She felt it.  
  
"She's dead," Audrey stated after opening her eyes again, no sliver of doubt in her voice.  
  
In two seconds, Audrey had gone from denying all knowledge of her to affirming what Maxwell had said on the phone. Lifting a hand to the back of his neck, he spun away from her an instant as if to wipe sweat away, yet his palm returns dry. You don't sweat in two-thousand Euro suits. You just don't.   Hand coming to check his mouth to ensure he hadn't started biting his lip, or chewing on his mouth rather considering the excise amount of his...favored, sustenance he craved receiving the news.   Still, a smirk appears on his lips as he states, "I thought you said you didn't know her, Audrey. How can you know that?"    
  
(For the exact reason he'd asked to speak to her, but shh.)  
  
Glad to know the news and affirmation of a woman's death was worth a smirk on his face. Maybe she was envious over his clear control of his emotions, rather how he wished for them to be perceived which is something Audrey has always struggled with. Maybe she just didn't like his face. Either way, that smirk annoyed her.  
  
"I can feel it," she explained as much as she was comfortable divulging, "if I focus. Best way I can describe it is I've got a foot here in life and the other in death." She pursed her lips after a pause and then added, "It's not something I want to get better at."  
  
She swallowed and then nodded at him, "What about her?"  
  
Still with a mask of pleasant amusement in place, Olivier only let's a cocked eyebrow indicate surprise at her phrasing. A flicker of unease in his throat, he's sure to take a breath before speaking. If she has a foot solidly in the great beyond--was she suggesting she could commune with them? Was 'sensing' them all she could do, unless she 'leveled up' or whatever and practiced it? That tool could be incredibly useful...and dangerous.   
  
(For instance, she might be able to find out who truly killed his father and he has zero interest in the information getting out--and that was just his first thought.    
  
His second was Pepper, and the thought he could ask her if she survived his gunshot to her heart or not.)  Letting the eyebrow fall back down he nods back as he speaks. "I thought...you might know something, considering what she was, considering her death is going to incite a pack already on edge."    
  
He brushes against his shoulder.    
  
"But if you didn't know her..."  
  
Ah, so it had been a supernatural death and he had assumed that she might know something about it. Her crossed arms went to her hips now as she examined him with no veiled displeasure.  
  
"I'm going to stop you right there," she took a hand off her hip to hold it up, "even if I did know something about it, when have I ever indicated that I would be willing to help you? As far as I'm concerned, I don't owe cocking shite."  
  
She wet her lips quickly before speaking, "Is that pack gonna disrupt me? My family? My home? My being able to help Devin? My guess is no."  
  
Funny how she stalls him in one hand and asks him for information with the other, he thinks as his chin lifts, eyes cursory over her with regard. Audrey had dislike in her eyes and hot in her throat, but if he only did business with those who liked him, he'd own very little. Biting back a retort he says easily first, "And was it not flattering that I presumed you might know something regarding attempts to displace me?"   
  
The girl -- the werewolf -- this was going to cause trouble, not the least of which if it truly was a vampire, then half his bought  businesses would be up in arms, demanding to know why their protection money hasn't succeeded in protecting them from the blood-drinkers he lets roam. How quickly they'd be willing to forget what Paris had been like without vampires safeguarded and the donors being compensated, he thinks rueful.    
  
Bemused as she holds her hands on her hips, Olivier wishes he could have reached for his champagne, but it remains in his private box.    
  
"I didn't say you owed me anything, Audrey." That would be a very different conversation. "And far be it from me to presume that you, or anyone in England, might care if war erupts on the streets of Paris--they stood by just fine a few weeks ago, when Paris fought your war for you." Of course, he'd helped them to be sure, but Roswell had taken his brother--they were never going to get to live after that.     
  
Stretching his eyebrow again, he adds, "Your ability to help Devin would be potentially impeded though, yes. I see no reason to let you into my house if you won't acknowledge their threat--not the least bit being Devin's Spidey sense might go off and land him in the middle of a fight between wolves and vampires."  
  
"It takes much more than the acknowledgement of a rich white man to flatter me," she responded back just as easily, finding it laughable that he said that Paris had fought the war for England. Audrey had never and would never be described as being patriotic, but even that was laughable.  
  
"And by Paris you naturally mean English citizens and yourself, oh but I forgot, Paris is synonymous to you." See? Pompous, arrogant, everything Audrey was annoyed by in a person.  
  
"Then we'd find another place to train him, and you know, it seems your brother might not be that upset about getting out of the house more often. Either way, I am vastly disinterested in a vampire and werewolf war in Paris."  
  
A high-pitched laugh buries itself behind his nose. What his race or wealth had to do with this, he isn't sure, but to literally laugh it off would be seen as condescending no doubt making his apparent offense doubled.     
  
He goes to tip his head to retreat as he says, "Touché", when he stalls again at the remark. Aha, well yes, Paris was synonymous with himself (fine, that he could understand), but he can't help pointing out, "In our city, with our tourists and citizens in the crossfire, our service men and women in attendance to the flames and wounded but--si, I do see your point." After all, why should she care he meant to see Notre Dame rebuilt and honored? It was the least he could do when he's the one who burned it down.     
  
He 'ahhs', and nods, ignoring the pit in his stomach as he acknowledged, "It seems that way. Though I admit, I didn't think you cared much for doing what my brother wants, Audrey."    
  
He tucks a hand into his pocket, standing straight as he looks at her.    
  
"I confess, I had not offered my own apology for events as I considered you would take such as insult added to injury. In my haste to avoid that, I fear it might have appeared I did not care."    
  
There's a solemn beat before he adds, much quieter, "I did care."  
  
"All which could have been avoided have you confided in the authorities but that much at least I cannot fault you with, as I've never been fond of them myself, still," the point stood. The problem was that a clean precise strike with Pharma agents leading the operation would have left little for D'Grey to salvage business wise, plus there was also an element of 'if you want something done right'. It didn't change that most of the casualties and especially the destruction of one of their landmarks was avoidable.  
  
His next words stalled her from moving away to continue working, a lump sticking her throat that she did her best to will away. That was a wound that would never heal, especially not around the men that had inflicted it. Olivier not personally but it didn't matter, not when he had been the reason for Antonio's actions. Who would have known that the day Emily had met Antonio was the day she had met her doom?  
  
"Is that supposed to make me feel better or you?"  
The authorities were informed, he almost points out, but thinks it would just lead to another jibe of his name being synonymous with Paris. Of course that was...just true, as well, and he -did- take that as flattery, coming from an African woman or--wow, no, he couldn't say that, talk about double standard but he'd just sound like a racist prick.   
  
Especially...when you consider what he'd just brought up. All right, he could see why she brought up his race and wealth now: he was in a position of considerable power over her, and it was arrogance as much as his skill that had protected him over Emily.     
  
Smiling very slight at her question, he brings a shoulder up and admits, "Me, I suppose, though if so it didn't work." He didn't feel better. Granted, he didn't feel worse either. Tony had done what he'd judged right, and he'd made the same move Olivier would have. Guilt was too crippling for a man in his position.    
  
"Nonetheless, it was also meant to correct an error of insensitivity, which I hope it did. Genuinely."  
  
At least he admitted it. It didn't win him any points by far but it was a detail and eventually those added up. There was no telling how much time that would take, Audrey certainly wouldn't bet on soon, but who knew? Audrey had never had that amount of luck but maybe Olivier did. Getting in her better graces (for she wasn't sure she had 'good' graces to begin with), however, wasn’t a matter of good luck. How complicated she made everything.  
  
She managed a smirk with eyebrows raised in disbelief, "So you don't mean to be a pompous arsehole on purpose is what you're saying?"   
  
Bemused smirk lifting his lips up higher (as if they are not standing there discussing the death of now two different girls), he nods, then he tilts his head.     
  
"Is that how I come off? Waving money and like my acknowledgement and company alone is flattery?" After rubbing over his lips he adds off hand, "What a dick."    
  
Which admittedly, he knew precisely why he came off that way: sometimes it was his job to be a dick. It wasn't the worst thing his job had him be, honestly. Dropping his hand again he adds sincerely, "In any case, yes Audrey, I think any such war is...troubling, no matter the country it occurs in. In fact, you can ask Nadia, as she's the reason I have committed to a charity to aid displaced children in Africa."  
  
"Yep," she affirmed with a nod after not being able to hold back a snort. Just went to show you how easy it was for men to get away with being total shitheads and people were likely to think they were confident and sexy, depending on your sexual preference.  
  
"Nadia's of the belief that if you have the ability to do good, you have a responsibility to do good. Me," Audrey shrugs and then shakes her head, "I don't answer to that high a calling. I've got enough responsibilities as it is, I'm not looking to add more by getting in the middle of a war where neither side would care if I lived or died. Emily died a casualty of something similar, I won't. Because in case you haven't noticed, it's the people around you that wind up getting hurt, and here you stand." She gestured at him before slapping her hand against her thigh.  
  
"I've been fighting a war of my own all my life, I don't have time for yours."   
  
That was just the sort of thing most were not liable to get away with asking of him, and though he was keen on reminding her exactly why, he was equally bemused by the reminder her moral plane was similar in height to his own.     
  
"é vero," he offers with the too-English addition of, "Fair enough," to highlight how spectacularly English she was being. And he does mean spectacular. Splendor to him was a concept easily found in those with the skill of being able to appear charitable and honor your selfishness at the same time.     
  
"Indeed? Wonderful. How refreshing. I never hold that against someone, Audrey, merely am speculating that considering you never met the woman and are equally convicted as to her death -- perhaps you're more involved than you think."  
  
Exactly why she was royally fucked. Audrey could try to ignore it all she could but there's a reason she felt a pull towards helping Devin, a reason she could sense the girl was dead with only her name and no previous connection. Understandably, Audrey was a trifle irked and that description was only to continue the typical English understatement.  
  
Audrey pursed her lips and then shrugged her shoulders again, blinking rapidly as she admitted, "Well, I don't want to be. That's reason enough for me."  
  
Aha.     
  
"Because you said so." Olivier echoes her central point, lifting his hand to his neck again and smirking as he adds as light as anything, "I can't argue with that."    
  
No, he couldn't, and he suspects that was the point. She was as talented as some of the conservative Tories party he suspects she opposed.    
  
"You sound like Tony," he admits in an apologetic tone as if not fully aware how much of an insult she would take that -- as if he's forgotten and remembered with the same breath as he speaks only a mild truth. Tony was like that-- _I don't have to drink blood, genetics be damned, because I said so._ And he wouldn't mind reminding Audrey that they'd once been friends, if only because he thinks the tragedy of his brother losing two friends in one terrible action just as upsetting as one.    
  
"But I'll respect your disinterest," he adds friendlier.

Putting it that way didn't make her feel any older than the 18 years she had spent on this earth but which she had convinced almost everyone that she was never that young. It had been a long time since she felt like a child, and she didn't really like the feeling of it. Thankfully the moment was brief and fleeting, less thankfully it was replaced by something that caused her even more displeasure.  
  
Audrey bristled and had to restrain herself from a curse on him, his brother and his whole family (if only because she'd come to regret it in time when it eventually came true). Funnily, she was only too aware that this was only an insult to her. To anybody else that thought Tony walked on water, it would be a compliment.  
  
"Don't look so downhearted," she urged sarcastically, "I'm sure you have plenty of people who'd love to meddle in your affairs." Audrey shrugged, her fake smile leaving as she did.  
  
"Just managed to turn to one of the few who genuinely doesn't give a flying fuck in space. But hey," Audrey gestured down the hallway, "you have a private box full of people ready to hang on to your every word, I won't keep you from them. Anything I can get you? Sir?"  
  
Perhaps he had succeeded in reminding her why people didn't insult him (with the truth, admittedly) on a regular basis -- or on the other hand, perhaps all he did was prove he was just as much of a dick as he came off in a first impression, but at least she had a moment to feel superior of him, no? He imagines it was made sweeter as she's standing in that usher's uniform next to his Armani. Good, he'd hate to think he didn't find something to give her, even if it was moral superiority over him. She gave him back his brother. Not knowingly, not even willingly -- but she had, and at the cost of Emily's life.     
  
"Too true, I do." He nods his head as she gestures without looking the way she points and let's a smirk cross his lips once more. There she went again saying the hard truths.     
  
"And yes, there is something you can do for me," he slips his hand out of his pocket and feels his smile soften, ever so gently, "you can take this," in his hand was a crisp 100 euro note that he folds into her palm as he speaks before extending his own, "because you are right to say you owe me nothing. So this time, please take that as payment and sell me, the _Natale_ watch my father gave me, back to me. Merci, cara."    
  
The smile on his lips lifts as he wiggles his fingers.  
  
Clever boy, that was exceedingly faster than last time. And granted she didn't take it with any intent in pawning it for money, but she would have gotten more than a hundred euro if she had. Not to mention, Audrey could imagine, a bit vividly, what some witches or wizards could do with a personal item of Olivier D'Grey's. It wasn't a bad thing to hold on to.  
  
But she was reminded of the ear-pulling and metaphorical bitch slapping she had gotten from Emily the last time she had done the same thing, and overtaken by a wave of nostalgia that was too bittersweet to swallow she gave the watch back after pulling it from the back pocket of her uniform slacks.   
  
"That was more impressive when I still wore pigtails, wasn't it?" Audrey didn't wait for an answer before she managed a chuckle and began to walk away with a smile she was surprised she didn't have to force (much), "Enjoy the show."  
  
Taking something off a person, using sleight of hand, misdirection, she had learned that a decade ago, back when stealing a wallet meant the difference between sleeping inside or out on the street. Putting something on a person using the same tactics was something she learned some time later, to put those wallets back in place before the owner could miss them.  
  
Audrey didn't know whether Olivier would be able to tell one euro in his pocket from the other, but she couldn't keep the money either. For someone who worked very hard, night and day, just to make ends meet, money brought her very little satisfaction. Plus, she had done the budgeting in her head, she was good.  
  



	52. Maus

The news of the day came as no surprise to him. *Tragic Murder of Nineteen Year Old Shocks Paris*, the headline screams in Helvetica bold and Nuevo pt. 14 -- but Ansel honestly doesn't even blink. Paper folded in hand, he breathes out and hands it over to Allison, already busy thinking. In fact in his mind (hardly a reputable place) it could easily be construed as a good thing. The poor girl had been a werewolf, and yet they had not lost a sibling. It assures his younger siblings loyalty anew. They were kept safe by the few of them now able to turn at will; they wouldn't betray him now. Damn Hans for putting the worry in his mind in the first place. (*You think you can inspire loyalty with this mutiny?*) The words echo burning in mind from his old master's crimson-eyes and snarl. They had meant to be a brand, and they'd stuck more than Ansel knew he should have allowed. Glancing around the apartment compound -- the proper term would probably be "lair", but Ansel disdains of cliches and stereotypically coded words -- he tilts his head, watching siblings take in the news. The comfortable chair he reclines in is near the head of the room, carefully placed to be within the best view of the television set, with the best natural lighting, and a little apart from the pack. Strange how he once craved the spot and now wants to be among fellows at the game table.  
  
Yet when they do see him looking, there's nothing but respect in their eyes -- submission in their posture. Even with the tragic news, Ansel smiles, brief. Of course there had never been a high likelihood of them betraying him. When they backed his play, swore their blood oath to him (when Rachelle had been forcibly removed) they became the only wolves to betray Hans L. Ricard -- the only people that lived to tell the tale. If their bond was broken again they'd be slaughtered one by one, which was only a modest comfort to have over being known for betrayal from then on.   
  
He glances back to the paper as it occurs to him with a discomforting twist to his gut: it might have been Hans who killed this girl. Drained of blood to make them think it was a vampire...but no, every report he'd had said Hans had left the country. Unless D'Grey was hiding him and Ansel knows better than most that their 'unbreakable bond' had been *at least* bent. Suppressing the shiver that crawls up his spine, he turns seeing Allison glance at him. Looks like he wasn't the only one with the thought. Enough of this, he thinks.  
  
Tossing the paper to land on the coffee table, when he rises, the room naturally hushes. Smirk twists on his lips. Still getting used to that, but oh what a nice change it made...  
  
Ansel claps his hands together, not needing words to gather attention. He speaks only to gesture to the door.  
  
"Let's go for a drink."   
  
There were hisses and grins of appreciation, but Ansel feels them more than hears them. He's already grabbing his leather jacket, shaking off the shoulders before swinging it on. When he walks, he takes on that  casual grace. He'd studied his role well.   
  
They follow, and for a few minutes he walks with their youngest sibling, asking how the pup was adjusting. As the boy twitters, wearing a sweatshirt too small for him now and a hat turned backwards, he seems confused as to why he would be walking with his Alpha. It takes a block of nudging to have the pup open up, still with heart jittery and a hand popping his collar like he couldn't fathom getting to walk with the cool kids. He was the same age as me when I turned, Ansel marvels. Only eighteen...still a boy trying to be a man.  
  
It unnerves him, but Ansel reminds himself not to show it. Not to let his shivers slip, his jaw tighten or eyes glint. Yes, he walked like this at Hans' right side once, but history repeating itself was precisely what he aims now to stop.  
  
Clapping his hand on the boy's shoulder, he opens the bar door and gestures with a toothy, wolfish grin, "After you, pup. You'll order the first round of shots."  
  
Amazing what a few seconds of gratitude and respect return in spades. Was I so eager to please, Hans? Ansel cuts off wondering as he heads straight to the pool table calling a challenge to Allison. A grin honest lights up as she calls back in her natural Spanish timbre warning of his downfall. The challenge warms him, makes forgetting easier. It would only take two seconds longer to remember oh no; he'd been infinitely worse and more desperate to please.  
  
Walking around the felt table, he lays one hand on the smooth polished wood and surveys the couple playing now. There's a clack-clack as the striped one outpaces it's neighbor, bouncing just off the corner and gets in the way of him making the shot.  
  
Ansel clucks his tongue, tsking with good nature in French, "Rotten luck, mate."  
  
The man shrugs, goes for a swig of his beer. Ansel pats the table, a light smack, leans over and plucks the cue ball from the felt.  
  
"Oi-", the man interjects in anger, but the look dies in his throat as he sees Ansel's teeth. They glint silvery, long, like he's smiling with razor blades. Yet when he turns eyes to the girl, they've calmed to pearl white and jade green eyes. His smile is all flirt now, and he leans in against her, savoring the uptick in her man's heart with a quick flick of his lips. Maybe this night wouldn't be so dull after all. It would do his siblings well, let them let off a little steam what with their earlier righteous diatribes...  
  
"Manners, monsieur," she says with a wag of her finger before the same hand slaps her thigh. Oh, yes, he thinks in delight, she was fun. Following her finger, his eyes land on the green sitting atop the felt and he smirks wider in understanding. Boy, you were getting hustled, he wants to say.   
  
"Sorry to interrupt, darling," He reaches up to tuck a untangle wayward brown strands from her pool cue, a look of ever-lasting patience in place. With feigned apology, Ansel offers, "My mates and I are here to pay tribute to a uh, mutual loss. Do you mind?"  
  
She gave him a longer glance over before shrugging, saying in a whisper, "He was losing."  
  
Ansel chuckles, nodding and leaning one hand over, using the excuse to reach behind her as he picks the wager up. The heat of her breath flushes even her dark skin a shade lighter and he luxuriates in the taste of the heady moment. If her heartbeat is any indication, she enjoyed herself too.  
  
"Of course," he says with a tilt of his head, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and pulling out a wallet to match her tip. It wouldn't do to have her efforts wasted. Waving the 20 bank note just under her eyes, he lowers it, lets it brush over her skin at the peak of a V-neck, trace a sensitive patch. The shiver she struggles to maintain presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth -- before he slides the money into her front pocket. His fingers linger longer than necessary, eyebrow cocking merrily. Then he snaps out, "And where do you think you're going?"  
  
The man stops abruptly on the edge of the little dais, eyes wide again as he surveys Allison in front of him. Ansel looks over the hustler's shoulder, still not moving away from the private, tasteful moment. Ha. Allison could look much more intimidating than that, he thinks, but the man is already shaking in his boots. After narrowing his gaze and looking between Allison and Ansel, he stammers, "I was just going, monsieur --"  
  
"Going?" Ansel parrots, brow popping. "No, I think not. You owe our hostess here fifty."  
  
The man gapes at him, but Ansel merely clasps his wrist behind his back and waits, knowing it was double (more than) what had been wagered already. Yet the longer Ansel holds his gaze, the weaker the defiance in the man. It seemed he could count, then. Even if his eyes hadn't flashed green, Ansel thinks, Allison was far from the only packmate at his side here. Next time he'd see what happened without the flash of supernatural talents. It was all still a game.  
  
After fumbling with his wallet, the man finally holds it out to Ansel. He raises his eyebrows, face contorting with apparent disgust. Then, over stammers of 'you said you said', Ansel sighs, takes it - rips the leather from his palm, removes a fifty and slides that to the girl's back pocket this time (with a side wink). Then he takes ten for himself and hands the wallet back, remarking lightly to the indignant gape, "Handling fee."  
  
He pats the pocket he put the note in. The girl next to him giggles.   
  
Ansel waves four fingers away from his thumb, gesturing "shoo" with a laugh of his own, claiming the man's forgotten pool cue. Long strides separate him from the hustler with all due reluctance as he rounds around the table to whistles and laughter from pack mates.   
  
"All right," he says after holding a hand up to the accolades with sheepish smirk, "I believe we have our own wager," he smirks at Allison whose fetching her own cue before seeing the tray of shots behind her, "but first."  
  
He takes a little glass of something clear, cheap and pungent. Swirling the liquid around to test it, he surveys for a long moment before declaring himself satisfied. He gestures to their pup. Shots start being passed around the room, along with chicken wings. Good boy, he thinks. Their hunger has to be ravenous. Meat was expensive, you know? Such pedestrian concerns haunt him now! Did Hans ever think so hard about expenses? It always seemed to Ansel he had everything command requires _au natural._  
  
Like, a toast for example. Raising the shot glass as his friends hush and simmer, Ansel stalls for an instant. Huh. In the back of his throat...he was sure he just got a blissful whiff of...no, he's being paranoid again. Clearing his throat forcibly, he lifts the little glass a smidgen higher.  
  
"Tonight we honor our fallen sister Cecily," he starts and thanks the paper mentally for giving him the requisite name. "She may not have been of our pack, but she was of our blood, our kind. The injustice against her will be avenged," his voice snags a growl at that point and Ansel knows it's a promise. Be it Hans or a vampire responsible, this city was not going to abide the murder of innocent wolves.  
  
"And Cecily, whom we hope has found peace and a bountiful hunt in whatever afterlife she preferred to believe in, we remember. Salud."  
  
There's a general warm murmur of ' _Salud_ ' around the dais, pool table and darts. He downs his shot first and so is bemused to watch the eerie similtaneous shot they all take. It's one thing to try and find words to comfort them...seeing it almost work felt oddly manipulative and deeply rewarding all at the same time. Of course, they wouldn't be calmed down entirely and well -- should they be? It's a cold shock in his heart that they could be murdered so openly, so clearly prejudicially. He was far from calm internally. The cue ball scuffs from the force of his break.  
  
Allison wins the game (which if he was being honest with himself he'd have expected), but he wins the rematch by a hair and is just on the verge of two-out-of three when he's already more-than-three-shots in. There's a buzz in the air, the bar lowering lights and raising their music half an hour ago but it didn't mask that scent a second time. As he narrows gaze and licks lips, he stiffens realizing -- Melissa had a whiff of it too, judging by her sudden hatred in those sparkly blue eyes and the tenseness in her shoulders. He takes another deep breath to be sure. Poison slips down his nose, burns the nasal cavity and he rips the cue back, tossing it to Frank. Yes. There could be no mistake.   
  
Vampire.  
  
Gagging on the scent as he leans over to tell Allison, "Keep them here," he wastes no time using the Alpha's growl. She never needed it. Allison has always been his best girl. The cloying, sickly-sweet perfume had crawled down his throat by the time he reaches Melissa near the door, laying a protective hand on her shoulder.  
  
He whispers, dangerous and low in the dim orange light, "What are you doing?"  
  
She spins, harried by his voice (Ansel assumes), curls and eyes both a little more wild. She spits at the floor, "You smell it too, it's --"  
  
"-a vampire." Ansel nods, then reminds gently with a thinly tight grip patting her shoulder blade. "That doesn't answer my question."  
  
"You said we should avenge Cecily. I'm not just going to sit here waiting for them to come after us next."  
  
Aha, oh, wonderful! Ansel takes a moment as if to consider this, then beams at her with cruel delight.  
  
"After you, _cherie_."   
  
There's a thrill in her eyes -- a warmth in his chest as the door creaks open behind her into the chilly, January alleyway. Running a temperature constantly does have it's perks. The door slams shut on it's own accord as Ansel follows her out, trying not to gag on the stronger scent.   
  
Down behind the bins, the hustler's mark he had pay earlier is screaming silently for help; dark eyes flooded with tears frozen on his cheeks and pale. Getting the blood sucked out of you by some blonde bitch would do that, Ansel thinks. Did the vampire have to be blonde? Aryan, tall...she looks like...well. A growl burns in his chest. Snarling, it's hard not to immediately wrench forward, hard to remember he should offer the honor of first vampire bite to Melissa. Luckily for him, she's already gone.  
  
The man lets out a sudden gasp as teeth and fangs are dirtily ripped from his neck. Stumbling to the ground, Ansel ignores for now the wrestling duo behind him, leaning down to clasp the man's shoulder again. Swirls of dirt, clangs and thuds as metal cans spill and bodies crash. Hearts race - all except the dead girl's, the vampire with heels he swears are familiar. Ugh, but the scent-! It's sickening how sweet, how false, how deadly. It fills the air with pheromones belying your own selfish wants. The man reeks of it. Ansel first cleans his wrist (licks a few drops of blood into his mouth because why deny himself?), then forces them to lock gazes while serenaded in chorus to another snarl-clash, clang.  
  
 "You're going to go home," Ansel implores dead on with eyes grey, "and you won't remember any of this. You drank too much, had your pocket picked, and a good night and went home."  
  
The howl, Melissa's howl, stops him dead in tracks.  
  
Ansel spins, dropping the man whose stuttering out as he scrambles away in confusion and weak from blood loss. The howl pierced a nail through his gullet and anger through his heart. Eyes turn deep grey, near-black. Teeth rip free. Short, thick russet fur bursts out over his neck. Snarl escaping a raw throat, it takes Ansel only one moment to wrench Melissa free. He launches them both - bloody, enraged, deadly - across the alley until he's spun the vampire by her neck to slam back into brick and head into stone, squeezing breath she doesn't need, his snarl cutting out abruptly as his eyes locked onto the silver cross she wears. No, no...  
  
Gaze wide and watery with disbelief, with anger, with hurt, Ansel finds himself letting go of her throat so she can gasp too. His bodyy crushes into hers, tight on reflex, but he doesn't move, too busy crawling his gaze. Her eyes red (just like her brother's...), veins clear and pronounced and swimming around hungry eyes (you should be in Austria) -- teeth sharp and filed to points as they snap at him once...then stop. Abruptly. Her feet stop struggling beneath her as she widens her own gaze as horrified as his.  
  
"Stefanie!?" Ansel asks -- demands -- pleads, but she only whimpers under his thumb. Tears well up between them both, and yet she dries just as fast the moment her feet are on the ground again.  
  
"Hallo, Maus," Stefanie says and the voice is wrong, it's wrong... but it's not, it's just...smooth, like silk as she speaks a pet name from last decade. He feels his heart drop away.  
  
"Knew you'd be glad to see me" she says sweet and defiant, "but you didn't have to slam quite so hard. Might ruin our fun if you cause me to pass out."  
  
'Might ruin your fun,' the retort (so easy-) is on the top of his tongue, It never was hard to call Stefanie out, never got anything but fabulously entertaining results and yet -- and yet --   
  
"Stef?" He repeats, quietly, and Ansel can only stare. Turns out, the news of the day was shocking after all.   
  
There's a plummeting sensation deep in his chest as she responds quieter, "Calm down at least a little. You're about to give yourself a heart attack, Ansel."  
  
His face curls, contorts with disgust and hand unclenches to let her gasp out, as if that's necessary now. Maybe he thinks if she breathes out he can breathe in.   
  
Neither do.  
  
Yes, she was right, his heart dances a pistoning tango. Yet strain his ears as he might, there's no response to his call. Suffocated by the silence in her own chest, Ansel lowers eyelids until he's matching her own slits (she looks like a cat, but he was never anything but a pup). Low murmur as silky as hers, it comes from deep cavity of his throat he wasn't sure he'd known existed until now.  
  
"Well, good for you, Stefanie." When he smacks his lips, he tastes the alcoholic bitters he is still swallowing. "You always did hate that I could hear your heart."  
  
She bites down on stained purple lips but to her credit doesn't look away. Not even a shiver chases her as she slices lip open. Impressed against his will, Ansel casts another wide glance down her front, from silver cross on a bloody chest to slacks hem. No wonder he recognized the heels.  
  
"Thank you." His spine tightens; he doesn't want her gratitude. "And her, Ansel?" she says, all sweetness even as she squirms under the probing gaze. Her chin jerks to Melissa, still scowling with a hand clutched to her neck as she heals. It reminds him as if he's late to the funeral, to turn and tell Melissa to go.   
  
"You sur-"  
  
"Go inside." Ansel isn't surprised to hear the growl lace his words; shock and disbelief never had been a long stage of grieving for him. Anger rushes onwards to him -- to them -- like a tide,  and he won't have Melissa suffer for it.  
  
As the girl nods with a huff and goes, Ansel keeps his gaze on Stefanie, his body still pressed on her like he thinks his heat could force some from her too. An equally bitter smile crosses her thin lips as she offers, "Seems congratulations are mutual then, Alpha."  
  
If Ansel took the low blow as such, he didn't show it. His eyebrows flick up to acknowledge he heard her, but he says nothing. Stefanie thinks he took her request to calm his heart as an order as strictly as he once listened to her brother, for it seems to beat as little as hers. Then she wonders when she's going to stop slapping him mentally; how many low blows does he truly deserve for doing what she prodded him to do in the first place?  
  
Ansel lets go now. The sudden shock of the loss of heat makes her stumble off the wall, heels tottering to catch her at the last moment with grace inhuman. A scowl twists his lips. Unfair or not (it was), hypocritical or not (equally true) -- he wished she fell.   
  
Pacing half across the alley to give her time to straighten, clean her mouth off -- Ansel rubs blood from his own lips, smooths the cisors to blunt teeth, claws retracting. Ears too sensitive pick up on her attempting to do the same, but when he rounds back around, the veins are still swimming around her eyes. A half second later they've faded; the distance makes her calm enough to gain the look of a normal, gorgeous woman. The facade that she's still his Stefanie might hurt worse than looking at her fangs.  
  
"Before you say anything -" Stefanie starts, but he doesn't think she realizes the lie her voice has become; that heavenly teasing lilt, what was once a drug to him turned to poison.   
  
(Oh Ansel, won't you ever learn?)  
  
"Congratulations Alpha? You mean to tell me you didn't know? Oh, but maybe you didn't, Stef. I tried to see you." Ansel cuts her off, rubbing his forehead. The noise escaping his throat is half-laugh, half-scoff. "I went to your flat, that weekend, only you weren't there. I thought you must have gone home to Austria --"  
  
"I did," she says cautiously, the skin around her eyes tight as she didn't bother hiding her flinch in gratitude he looked for her. "I landed in Paris two hours ago."  
  
Viciously, Ansel returns, "At least I know you didn't murder Cecily, then."  
  
Stefanie frowns, snapping herself high-strung, "Whose Cecily?"  
  
Was it him, or did she sound nervous?  
  
"Cecily," Ansel stressed the "y" vowel, irritated by how Germanic and harsh she'd made it sound, spirited as she snaps, "was a werewolf whose body was found around the 19th arrondissement last night. She was entirely drained of blood and left mauled in in the Buttes-Chaumont."  
  
Stefanie flinches. Only then she steels herself straight and takes a step forward, "So you aren't going to ask me how I turned either," her voice quavers on that word, "but you'll accuse me of every vampire murder in the region."  
  
The derisive scoff he offers chills them both, but truthfully he hardly hears past the quaver.   
  
"You haven't exactly seemed eager to explain, darling."   
  
What does she mean 'either', anyway? Oh, let him guess! Head cocking to the side as he takes a step towards her, he holds a hand up, "Oh, but darling, you sound upset I'm equally not eager to hear your justification for killing yourself 'either'," and let's face it, only one person that could be, "Antonio angry with you, Stefanie?"   
  
Heels slamming the ground as she stuffs hands down her pants pockets and stalks forward, her jaw clicks. A vein pops near her right eye (he wants to kiss it). Stefanie flips hair he ran his fingers through, gripped and tugged (it was only three weeks ago) over her shoulder. The motion was so expected, his neck mimics it as he stiffens, awaiting her approach.  
  
"What does that matter to you? Should have expected you'd be pleased -- here's your chance to swoop in and save me -- "  
  
He rolls his eyes.  
  
"-- you do realize now you're the one comparing the two of you, Ansel?" She hisses, but it didn't matter. At least he didn't have to sit through her denial first. He shrugs both leather shoulders at her and huffs out, "Maybe for once we're in agreement. Imagine that, Stefanie. Neither one of us wanted you to die, call the presses! Actually," Ansel lifts a finger, points at the night above as it occurs to him, "I should call Amalie, thank her for the press coverage."  
  
"Whenever you're done talking to yourself," Stefanie calls, penciled eyebrow raising, "you can decide if you want to have a serious conversation, or if you want to mock Tony and insult me for the rest of the night."  
  
 "Well, there's your first mistake," Ansel whips with a ghost of the customary smirk on his lips, "don't make that my choice, Stef. I can assure you only one third of the mocking will be in what you call 'good taste.' "  
  
Her eyes flash. The crimson hue, however brief in appearance, effectively erases his smirk.   
  
"Forgive me for thinking you should make your own choices, Ansel."  
  
The words sting. Looking away again, his eyes focus on where mortar cracks in the brick alleyway. Dirt and dust seep onto the cement, cluttered in paper trash. The whole place reeks like stale bourbon, dried sweat and cum, like haunted by it's countless drunken regrets. Chest rolling out with his sigh, he mumbles, "Forgive me for not wanting to listen to how you died, Stef."  
  
Her quavering 'oh' this time is soft. Her demeanor melts an inch, becomes a fleeting thing of feathers, which is strange for them. It has been years since they didn't at least trade barbs even if it was days only since they had been intimate. Unsure what to do with vulnerability, Stefanie takes a few steps towards him, closing distance until she has only inches to search for his eyes. Or so it appears. Unable to meet them, she breathes his name out, then breathes in, the unnecessary pattern welcome in spite of himself to his ears.  
  
"Ansel?"   
  
Even as his vision hardens on the wall past stray blonde wisps, he sees rolling hills with painted cottages and round doors, street vendors of strudel on brick pathways and art posters for music festivals.   
  
"Where'd you go?" Stefanie asks, low. He laughs a very tiny bit and finally meets her gaze again with his headshake.  
  
"You know where, Stef." Tone certain of her knowledge, he thinks he's equally convinced she knows he hasn't ever lied to her. There's a beat of his heart he pretends came from her.   
  
"I do," and as she speaks it was her turn for her shoulders to roll forward. She would like to ask him if it was their lot to be so damned nostalgic. They stand in his city, the Parisian home he yearned for when they were in hers, and yet he's suddenly wistful for her Austria (their Salzburg) instead. She'd like to ask him that but it sounds too close, much too close, to asking if they'd ever be happy with what they had at all.  
  
Instead she asks, "You went to my flat?"  
  
The question furrows his brows and he wants to deny it. Dammit all -- why did he tell her that? Wasn't there enough for them to travail through, haughty, serious and weighted in grief? Yet Stefanie, with her big blue gaze and her succulent smile as only Stefanie can, focused on his moment of utter naivete. (Maybe it made her feel better about their own.)  
  
It was like a Stefanie Sundae Special: one part sugar, one part snark, one part reminding him he was never going to not want her, one part reminding him why that makes him an absolute fool. Only she's removed the part that makes it 'special' when her hand graces his cheek in unspoken gratitude. He winces and rears chin back. Her hand stays raised right where she left it. Ansel can't stop staring at it, at the flash of her wrist where he'd listen to her pulse, where he'd put his lips to taste her heart. Now, nothing.  
  
The touch of her nail to his bone mades him shiver, the ice of her skin slips under his, blood freezing in it's path. And it takes a lot to cool a wolf down.   
  
Stefanie had a knack for it before she turned to marble, but when he wrenches gaze from wrist to her eyes, he sees she's anything but stone right now. Though it may be from the Artic, her gaze was still water -- and her mouth still contorts with the sweet, unsure expression he remembers too vividly adoring to do anything but step right back into her fingers, clench his hand around her wrist like a vice-grip as he lets the heat of his skin brand her. The squeeze clears her eyes. She nods, twice, too quickly. He can tell. Stefanie accepts that he wants to reassure her, but she wasn't going to forget him flinching from her touch. (He doesn't blame her).  
  
"When?" He asks, a single word on a ravaged, hurt throat. Stefanie lowers her neck, then replies, "That isn't what you want to know."  
  
His heart beats again, load enough for both of them to claim comfort in it if he told himself it was okay.  
  
"I make the choice about what I want to talk about?"   
  
The smirk he gives her is echoed on her mouth, two or three inches away. Swallowing a chuckle, she nods and he said, "Then when?"  
  
(Of course he can't blame her for remembering his flinch. He remembers her plane taking off.)  
  
"Honestly? I think the same night you became alpha. Or the early morning after, rather."  
  
There's something strange in her gaze, like she's remembering something unpleasant but it's not him she shares the memory with. Ansel decided quickly: he doesn't want to know. See, maybe he was getting a hang of this choice thing after all. Of course, he should ask then what...he does truly want to know...  
  
"Why?"  
  
Stefanie gives him a tiny nod, like it was the right answer. Ansel doesn't move. She lowers her hand, expecting him to let go, but Ansel has never been good at letting things go when he should and instead he grips tight, squeezes harder.  
  
"I died with Marcel," Stefanie said. The reason hurts, but he understands (of course he does), so maybe less than he expected it too. She repeats her thrust of weapon, but it's still blunt.  
  
"I died the moment he did."  
  
He'd already known. The night they were together, it was all too clear to him. They fell into each others arms like it was a reason for something grand. Like it was why she was standing up to her brother, like it was why she should live. Ansel always knew it was a lie. For all their passion, for all their satisfaction and heat, they'd come together in the dark and simply spent some time comforting one another in the grief of endings.   
  
"When I watched him die, in front of me, powerless to stop it, I...I, just stopped feeling anything. And I hated it. I wanted it to hurt more. I wanted the world to understand it didn't get to keep turning like nothing happened; I wanted life to matter."  
  
"I get it," Ansel said, and stepped away from her, mouth pursed. She doesn't try to stop him.  
  
"But." Stefanie prompts him.  
  
He laughs, a bit. She always has known him as well as he knew her. Her nails, hand finally freed, trail through her hair. It's a welcome distraction, one he's grateful to seize on, even if for only a few moments. The scent of her shampoo is even more welcome.  
  
"However." Ansel adjusts with a teasing lilt she smiles at. "I can't pretend the thought -- the image of you drinking blood..." Ansel flinches again, hand scratching like he has fleas behind his ear and he waits, expectant. He waits for her to cut him off in rescue and give him the word he's looking for. When she says nothing (she doesn't even blink), he straightens in surprise. The shift is peculiar but good, he wants to think. Yes, good. Only one flaw: he doesn't actually know what to say.  
  
It doesn't seem to matter: Stefanie stays silent.  
  
"I mean cherie, it's literally programmed into my body to loathe that," Ansel tries. Stefanie scoffs, eyes popping wide.   
  
"Oui, you're right darling, no chance of you ignoring biological programming is there?"  
  
Ansel snorts, shaking his head and shrugging leather again. It was a low blow, but it was exceedingly true. Addictions had a way of undercutting his every effort. Still, as long as they were being so brutally honest...  
  
"I hate vampires, Stefanie." He states, incredulous. Her chin lifts. He continues, hand back up and waving over her, "I do, and biological or not, they're trying to wipe us out, kill my entire pack. It's nigh on war. I hate vampires, it's a fact, just like it's a fact I love you." Ansel doesn't pause for breath or to take in her reaction, beyond watching her suddenly straighten, like the words were a surprisingly good prize at the bottom of a Cereal box she forced herself to finish three bowls at once for.  
  
"And you're a vampire?" He gestures, hand flapping over her again. "So, you see how that might be a little nauseating to me? "   
  
Her expression double-takes (like his stomach is trying to do) as his hand slaps his thigh. Whoops, sorry darling, three bowls of pure corn starch and sugar is still going to make you sick no matter how wonderful and worth it you think it is.  
  
Stefanie swallows hard, taking a moment to think and breathe like she's forgotten it's not necessary. Then she said, one hand in pocket, the other open by her thigh, "You never can do anything normally, can you, maus?"  
  
The nickname shouldn't make him smirk as wide as it does but oh, if that wasn't Stefanie making him warm he doesn't know what is -- and, what with her new sub-zero body temperature, you bet he's taking what he can get.  
  
"Oh, the ship for us being normal is in Fiji by this time, darling." He quips.  
  
She laughs, lifting both hands now and rubbing them over her eyes, cleaning brow and stains from her lips.   
  
"Right," she echoes in a daze as he undergoes a flurry of quick steps, "Long as the ship for -us- hasn't sailed --"  
  
He cuts her off with one, hard-fast kiss. Her lips meld to his and, if they aren't warm, they are soft where his are chapped and taste of some mix of blood and a Danish. It's new, but familiar  and that's intoxicating enough. Breath harsh, he forces it in her mouth like CPR, and it works - she gasps.   
  
Broken away as she seizes his shoulders, he looks to her unbroken manicure even as they dig in his shoulder blade and marvels. Three weeks old and she was his rival for strength? Hell. He gasps too, looks back at her; her pupils dilated, her mouth wide and read.   
  
"I'll take that as a no," she says, light in tease even as she struggles to figure out what the hell is going on.  
  
"I'll take it as you saying it back," he quips as easily and struggling as she did. Her eyes go wider yet.  
  
She starts, "Anse--"  
  
He puts his finger over her lips as his own twitch, shaking his head.  
  
"You need time," he said and Stefanie smiles a bit in relief. He's right, like he hadn't just told her how to feel. But maybe she just was proud of him choosing for himself how he wants to be loved in return.  
  
"True," she whispers against his fingertip, nipping it. It startles him, watching veins reappear around her darkening eyes, a fang piercing his skin. Unmoved, Ansel isn't wholly sure he breathes as she licks the pad of his finger - though his smile twists seeing her shudder at how bitter his blood is.  
  
"That'd be the venom," Ansel said, words light. Wolves biting them were toxic to vampires, after all; even if blood isn't truly where it's stored. She rolls her eyes, the tip of her tongue pushing his finger away as she mutters, "Right, and you need time not to want to vomit on sight of me."  
  
Ansel smirks, pulling his finger into his own mouth and licking hard. Stefanie blinks at the familiar, arousing image. Ear perking as he thinks he might have heard her heart -- if not beat, then twitch -- his smile only grows more smug.  
  
"Luckily," he says as his finger pops out, "it seems we've plenty of time for it."   
  
Stefanie frowns.   
  
Yes, that was lucky. Not as if he's going to die while she lives forever and ever or anything. The thought burrows in his stomach, eyes narrowing in a hateful moment.   
  
"Yes, well, while you work that out, Ansel -- I'm not living at my flat. I'm staying with the D'Grey brothers."  
  
And, now he gapes. Was she serious!? What was she-- seriously!? If Tony hadn't held her back...If Marcel hadn't died...This would have been a very different conversation but, ah well, what's he going to do, cry and mope about?   
  
No, although he does have a better idea for how to deal with Tony now. After making a mental note to call Jean back in the morning, Ansel tucks his hands back across his chest, folded. His smirk widens.  
  
"Hate sex -is- on your list of tenets for being roommates," he quips.   
  
  
Oh look how she frowns, suspicious and irritated at the same time. What did she expect? 'I love you (might want to throw up)' -- and she answers 'I'm living with the man who killed my brother'? The leader of the cartel that held his Paris in a vice grip? The man who made me happy? (You seemed happy enough five seconds ago kissing me -- )  
  
"Yes it is, maus, but not where the busybody rest of whole eavesdropping pack of werewolves can hear us."  
  
Stefanie returns the quip, winking. She leaves him to consider those words (and that saucy wink) -- as she wooshes away.  
  



	53. Hypocrisy

He found his brother in one of their many living rooms and wasn't shocked there was a glass of scotch nearby. Thinking his words over, which only made him mad, might have worked against him: he knew if he confronts his brother angrily Tony would only give him the same back. And yet. Olivier truly can't remember, for all their fights, ever being the one to confront head on. Tony knew that. Tony knew he would silently stew, smirk and get even (just like Dad, some part of him nags in a voice that sounds oddly like Eliza). Right at this moment, Tony knew he didn't want to implode their wibbly-wobbly patchwork of steel brotherhood. So if Oli wouldn't confront him about what was going on, then Tony didn't have to deal with it either.   
  
"Ciao, fratello," Olivier starts in Italian (a sure sign of seriousness but also genuity).   
  
Tossing the police report (yeah, he had it for a week now, but sue the dramatics: he was Italian, he liked using a prop) onto the coffee table, it opens to a photo of a man they'd both known. He was dead. Actually they all were, the whole stack of them.  
  
"Tell me, have we swapped places here?" He asks open handed as he goes to a window; he was sick of how dark it was in here. Yeah, it was winter, but the sun was out. Daniella always has her flat flooded with light from wide-open shades. Oli draws the rope to keep the curtains back, then looks back to his brother, arms folded. He's smirking, small.  
  
"You going to tell me you snapped Fellini's neck, for me? You just took care of it--I mean is that supposed to be you being a fly in my ear? Because it strikes me as you being an assassin."  
  
Olivier moves from the window to sit on the chair across his brother and bridges his elbows on his knees. His words were softer.  
  
"Tony, if you aren't giving me a lecture anymore on the sanctity of life, I am more than happy to do so for you. Hell, I probably have some of your best ones memorized. You might think I'm going to be doing jigs on St. Crispin's steps, but I'm not. This...," he gestured at the folder, "This isn't you."  
  
His eyebrows popped as the folder dropped, and the face staring back at him was one of many that didn't seem to want to leave him alone at night. Tony figured it was only a matter of time before Olivier confronted him about it. The only surprise was how long it had taken.   
  
"Tell -me- brother, did you come up with this little routine on your way over here or have you been planning this moment out to maximize its effectiveness?" It was as rhetorical as his brother's question had been, but Tony was never one to stay quiet.  
  
How the tables turned. Sixteen people, sixteen snapped necks. The death was quick, it was painless, and some would argue that it was more than they deserved but Tony knew better than to hide behind that so he didn't.  
  
He raises his head, swirling the alcohol in the small glass and then closed his book, setting it away from him and then picked up the folder a bit challengingly even. Looked through every one of the police reports, read words he knew personally, looked all of them in the eye one final time.  
  
"Identity is relative. Given all your relationships with people who rename themselves in the darkness, you should understand." He dropped the folder again, and looked at Olivier, refraining himself from taking a drink.   
  
"They used to work for you. You hired almost all of them -personally-. I would have knocked them out, and either they would have gone to jail and you'd have bailed them out, or you would have kept them from going to jail in the first place. Just like you did with Pietro." He raised his eyebrows and then inclined his head.   
  
"Just like you did with another half dozen."  
  
"Do you hear yourself right now? Justifying? Or are you teaching me another _lesson_ , brother?" Like Dad did, he seems to say.

He snorted at the insinuation, shrugging it off quickly. Right, as if he could be that damn manipulative and controlling, all to prove a point. He wasn't proving anything, he was just doing what he needed to do! Tony was aware of the over abundance of irony here.  
  
It was more like a dozen, but Olivier knew saying such wouldn't really help his case. A dozen - to be precise a baker's dozen considering those he purposefully acquitted - who now owed their freedom to him twice over. Olivier had learned from his father, it was true, but he found power through gratitude his narcotic of choice. Fear never lasts, and always bit you in the ass in the end, like a hit of most addictive drugs did.   
  
He didn't say any of this, just as he found himself swallowing down the remark 'and so you'd prefer I kill them?', as of course, that was exactly what his brother did.   
  
"Relative, maybe, but only through intent Tonio. So that's what you want now? To rename yourself in darkness?"   
  
He'd looked at every picture, Olivier notes with a heavy heart. "I mean, it's impressive! Really." It was sardonic. "Looking through every photo. Taking the bullet straight between your teeth and not even reaching for alcohol."  
  
It was, and the bitterness and sarcasm makes his voice ache all the same.   
  
"Yeah that's exactly what I want," he began as sarcastically as he could muster. "From now on you can only refer to me as Antonio, so I can make a new reputation for myself, one that will continue the family legacy and finally make dearly departed dead dad D'Grey proud." His eyebrows rose as bile reached his throat too. It took all his efforts not to spit at the ground.

Something in his chest twists suddenly as he hears that. It was a raw sardonic tone, when his brother spoke of something he spent his life craving (and achieved) with as much care as he discusses what was under his shoe. Actually, quite a bit less care. Tony's shoes were handcrafted Italian leather.

"You're just going to ignore the fact that thanks to you we have criminals back on the street but thanks to me, that's 16 less people that will never hurt anyone ever again?" He scoffs and shakes his head.  
  
"Ai, eccellente, Antonio." Olivier leans back in his chair swiftly. "You and me running the country, if not the world that is, all we have to do is kill whoever we don't like. That -is- what Dad wanted. And you made damn sure we, didn't follow -his- plan," yeah that was his heart in his throat he was quickly scrubbing at, "so, si."   
  
Olivier's hand folds in fingers to thumb and swings expressively through the air.  
  
"I'll ignore it as long as you're ignoring the fact that you killed sixteen people because you didn't like what they did to make a living. I'll ignore it as long as you're ignoring that yeah thanks to me there are people out there alive, helping me fix the mess Roswell created and thanks to you there's sixteen people in the ground. I'll ignore it," he flings his hand to his knee and swallows his hammering throat, "because I'm not letting you throw away your life. More than that: your morality. You really think I'm just going to sit here while you do?"  
  
"Yeah I made damn sure, and I still am." Tony was seething but he didn't want to raise his voice, though the hypocrisy at work here was quickly riling him up.   
  
"Yeah, I killed those 16 people. Like I killed 7 the day before. And the two thugs before that, ripped them apart. Like I killed Emily. Like I killed Remington- so pray tell!" He clapped his hands together and used his fingers to point at Olivier.  
  
"How is that not me when I've been a killer from that day five years ago? No, Olivier," he shook his head again.  
  
"I'm not ignoring it, and that excuse of cleaning up Roswell's mess is complete bullshit, just, by the way. So maybe you should worry less about me and more about yourself."  
  
"You're doing that," Olivier argued instinctively, his head jerking up with his hand. "You've been worrying about me, my safety, my happiness and my damned eternal soul with such complete intensity my whole life, it's like the thought of me never has to cross my mind. You do it for me."

This whole thing was utter bullshit in Tony's opinion. Hadn't one of the reasons he left been that Olivier resented Tony being that to tiny voice of reason in his ear in the first place? Make up your mind brother, his exhale seemed to say as he sat up and leaned forward, arms crossed across his knees.

"Except of course when you're not here, you'd think I'd have been glad for a moment of peace Jiminiy, but there was none. I kept expecting I'd turn around and you'd be shouting at me, angry, irate, in my ear and I could imagine it so completely I couldn't ever get away from it." Olivier snorts, as if it's a new idea, "It's actually more peaceful when you're here to do it yourself!"

Tony was a little surprised to hear that it hadn't served any good, as far as the little voice of consciousness went and then snorted as his brother commented he'd rather have Tony be there to do it in person.  
  
His hand falls again and he rubs over his eyebrows hard. They probably were jumping and squirming and wriggling all over his face, the damn fuzzy caterpillars.  
  
"Or it was, except you...shut up." His hand falls on his lap as he looks back at Tony.   
  
Part of him was laughing at himself. It was ridiculous, asking his brother to berate him, he knew that. He knew it except, it also wasn't. Tony had no trouble berating him (clearly). But he seemed to have a problem giving the same care (any care), to himself.  
  
"So. You think I don't know that? You think I don't know I," his pinched fingers hit his chest, "did that to you? You killed Dad. To save, " he hits his chest, "me. I didn't ask you to. But you --" His hand and face both fall again, "-y-you always, wanted me to be better. You're surprised that I want the same for you? Because right now brother, I know you can't see it? But you're acting more like Dad would have wanted you to, every day."  
  
He pursed his lips. Tony had stopped for a reason, and that's because yelling at his brother hadn't worked the first time, and it ended disastrously. He was taking a completely different approach.  
  
"Yeah, and given the same chance I would do it all over again. You wouldn't have to ask me and you certainly don't and won't have to thank me, for anything I do for you. I look out for me too. Contrary to your opinion, I do."  
  
He pauses at the last, bristling and leans back down, eyes narrowing. "You ever think I've stopped berating you because you have twenty-seven different reasons to call me a hypocrite? That as soon as I so as much open my mouth to lecture, you're just gonna remind me of everything I've done?"  
  
"So you just 'took care of it' instead?" Olivier snaps, insulted more on the principle that he'd call his brother out as a hypocrite than anything else. Maybe because it...was true.   
  
"Tony. I'm not attacking you for what you did five years ago." He wasn't; his voice seems to drop halfway through the sentence. Yet his eyes remain hard. "But I've seen this before. Hell, I've -done- this before. You can't save me by killing people, Tony. You ever think that's sixteen people I as good as murdered too?"

"Damn right I did," he snapped back reflexively, defensively. He scoffed again, not sure whether to believe Olivier. He might not be attacking Tony, but that didn't mean he had forgiven him, that he didn't blame him.

"No, you're not allowed to do that," he leaned forward again, pointing at Olivier before turning the finger back at him. "I did that, I chose to do all of that. It's all on me. You are  _not_ allowed to feel my guilt."

"Do you feel guilt then?" He asks sardonic, dry. Of course he had, of course Tony had been guilty his whole life (and usually for things he can't control). And yet...

Tony didn't even bothering answering that question, given that it was plainly obvious. As he's said before, he could find a way to feel guilt about Bambi 's mother if he really gave it some effort. On top of that, he was Catholic. He knew guilt all too well.

Olivier stops. That wasn't his point. A hand brushes his lips.  
  
"What I'm saying. After all these years of you lecturing me, I have no intention to let you--" He fumbles for what exactly he means before he realizes he knows.   
  
"I'm saying - you succeeded, all right? I didn't turn into Dad. I won't let you turn into me."  
  
He succeeded. That was laughable. He did laugh. Okay, yes, Olivier never reached evil. Fucked up, yes, but evil? No, never. But that wasn't it, he wasn't done here.  
  
"Then stop."  
  
His head rears for a moment, taken aback. It wasn't the laughter (he barely restrains rolling his eyes); that he expected however grating it was. The assertion that he couldn't feel his guilt...  
  
...Tony was likely the only one in his life he had the urge to feel empathy for. Olivier wasn't keen to ignore the urge, however ironic it was.   
  
"Stop?" Olivier laughs too, and chokes on it. "Are you -- seriously? Tonio, you took it upon yourself to decide they shouldn't live. Sixteen families out looking for revenge--but that's not the point either. You," he points, "you, aren't like this! If you can kill Dad, and after I've listened to all these lectures on my bloody, and yeah pun intended, soul, you don't get to change now and decide you just don't care anymore! "  
  
"Oh! I get it now," he wags his finger, reaching for his glass again and taking a sip after his chuckle.  
  
"Is it that you don't like when somebody else is deciding people's fate? Only you can do that ? Like that girl you tortured and killed in here, she dies, so says King Olivier. Eliza lives, so says King Olivier." He dropped his mocking,  _posh_ tone and stopped swishing his hand about, smacking his knee.  
  
"I don't care? Wow, that's certainly news to me! Why didn't you tell me before? All these weeks of restless sleep if any sleep- I'm cured! I don't care anymore!" He smirked before adding again, "So says, King Olivier."  
  
Sarah, he almost says, as if reminding his brother he knew her was going to help his case. Sarah, who had made herself a problem, who he was able to frame for his own crime against Roswell -- sinning by being too moral, in deciding to kill Steven to protect Eliza. Except again, had saving her by killing the man really done anything but insure in the end that Tony killed Emily?  
  
(And his brother thinks he doesn't worry or guilt himself.)  
  
The first 'King Olivier' made him eye roll, the second scowl, and by the third he wasn't sure if he wants to strike his brother or break down in tears of laughter for the truth.   
  
"Oh, Tony." He's rubbing over both eyes and mouth, scraping palm against stubble and spittle before he chokes down incredulous chuckles. "If I could by decree decide you didn't have to hurt anymore, you think I wouldn't? As if, considering as King Olivier my next move would be logically ridding myself of the person who just killed sixteen people, ten of them my employees? I'm not jealous, okay? I'm freaking. angry. It's too late, brother, even if you were serious about making Dad proud -- you don't, " he snaps his hand down," you don't get to try now. I'm going to be there, every single day, to pull you back from this godforsaken edge. If I have to say it this way I will -- do not kill anyone else. Anyone. Or if you want me to have Stefanie come in here and quote the actual commandment I will. I wasn't going to call you a hypocrite for what you did to save me, Tony. But we won. They are gone. You. can. stop."  
  
"I can't believe I even have to resort to saying these childish words but you? You don't tell me what to do, okay big shot? So go ahead, be angry, take a couple of swings if you want," he sets his glass down and claps his hands together, beckoning by curling his palms.   
  
"But after, you better sit back and think! Think hard until you realize that 'picking up Roswell's mess' would be better achieved by actually keeping criminals off the streets, by not supplying gangs with weapons and children with drugs. You do that, I'll stop on my own, because -that's- when I'll feel victorious. So congratulations to you, but this!" he gestures in general, sitting up straighter now, before poking his own chest, "this doesn't feel like winning."  
  
He drank the rest of his bourbon and set the glass down while he stood up.  
  
"I'm done talking."  
  
He stands almost immediately, as Olivier thinks he has to take a second to feel his heart rate settle back down. Their blood pressure rising was a constant struggle and now? Now hearing his brother insult him and continue and continue to ignore the bloody issue--  
  
Olivier swivels at the last and narrows his gaze but at least, at least he would look his brother in the eye. He goes still at the specific instruction back and clenches his fist at his side. Tony wasn't a hypocrite, he realized. He just had decided he was a lost cause when by all accounts it was himself and Stefanie that should be written off.  
  
"You're never done talking." He says first, because he was Olivier D'Grey and he couldn't help it. "I'm sorry, Tony. All right? I know what it is you did for me, and I am _sick_ ," he gestures at himself, "at what I've done to you. What do you want, for yourself? For one second, please, just stop thinking that you can only be happy by something that I do  -- tell me what _you_ want, for yourself. Let me _help_ you!"  
  
Alright, maybe it was especially difficult for him to stop talking when people kept talking at him. He wasn't one to just sit back and take something with his mouth shut. It came from a long established habit of never letting Remington get the last word, which then extended to almost everyone else.  
  
"Now you decide to admit to that innate Catholic guilt? Stop! You haven't done anything to me," well, recently but the point stood, "I got myself here, and I'm more than capable of getting myself out. I'm not just going to go around and kill people for the hell of it, because it would be easier to have them out of my life! Cause believe me I have a long list.   
  
They were Death Eaters, they were criminals, and yeah, I was more than a little angry that day. And I've been angry ever since/ that, that you can't help me with! You can't blackmail, or threaten, or buy, or kill the problem away, so seeing as how that makes you useless, I'll figure it out on my own." He had snapped defensive, growling and spiteful but the second he had finished he wished he could take it back. But he didn't.  
  
Tony's fist lifted and it isn't until he has a sudden flash of an image of his brother - his baby brother - the little kid who ran up to him in the church, and dropped apples down at him in Nonna's backyard, who once crumpled into his side after nearly losing his life, and then the memory of watching his fist break his bones and Olivier turns, his hand breaking the nearby lamp instead. Now if only he could fix whatever had just broken in his chest as easily as he could wave his hand to mend the glass.  
  
He didn't look away from the broken pieces right away, didn't trust himself to look at his brother because he knew what he would say. If he was so fucking useless, what was Tony doing living in his house? (It was his; Tony hadn't inherited anything even if he did technically - because Tony would refuse it.)   
  
He speaks without looking around.  
  
"I won't, stop. Anymore than you are. I can't. And I don't, mean, the business. I don't want this life for you, Tony. I can't say I never did. But you, you chose for me, five years ago. And considering you haven't given up on me, I am not giving up on you. So be angry," now he does turn back, gesturing at his brother, "go ahead. But useless? That's on you. You feel useless. You feel like you can't bring people back to life, you can't make Stefanie human again and you can't just make yourself feel happy, and that, that is on you!"  
  
He swallowed an apology because his pride got stuck in the middle of his throat and refused to be choked down. Tony barely flinched at the broken lamp, even knowing if could have been his nose, His nose was a bit stronger though, than a glass lamp. His vanity might be made of glass but there were some strong bones in his face.  
  
"I chose for you- by not letting you die?! My fucking bad then!" Tony's self control was at its lowest in a long time, so he would have to be careful to breathe and not give in to his baser and crueler dispositions.

Olivier has to stiffen his neck and back to refuse the immediate urge just to flinch. With an exhale hot and harsh (he thinks of taking too hard a pull on a bong, when he and Tony were on his college campus years ago, for how harsh his throat burns -- and hates knowing what he's aching for, knowing he was likely going to be at Daniella's soon).

"But you're right brother! We're agreeing!" Tony gestured between them with two hands. "It is on me. Me. So, it's on me to fix it, not you."

"Jesus Christ, what does a guy have to do to read in peace," he snatched his book back and started walking out of the room, "in this fucking house?"

"You did!" Olivier calls it anyways, rubbing at the back of his neck, "You. chose for me. And I'm fucking glad you did." That was muttered to himself because that was the truth of it. "Because sometimes, others just decide better for you."  
  
Which might be his point over everything but he picks the lamp back up just to chuck it at the wall again anyways. Let it shatter. He didn't care.

Tony forgets that just a few weeks ago he would have been agreeing with his brother, that sometimes that little thing known as free will was nothing but a huge pile of stinking horse shit, but apparently not when it concerned his own free will. He really was a hypocrite.

"Don't hold your breath," he muttered back, seconds before the lamp shatters at the wall next to him. He keeps walking forward, book in hand and forces himself just to keep walking. It was like a very fucked up human version of Dori's motto.  
  
"Cazzo." He pulls back a few steps muttering that. "And as if anyone in the fucking world could get Stefanie to do anything except you."  
  
He adds that because Olivier can't help it; because it was bloody the truth.   
  
"Maybe you should take a page out of her book then!" he called back after a tiny scoff. Yeah, right. As if he had any bearing over what she did. He wished.  
  
Furious, he kept marching forward, and marched himself to the door. His bedroom door, and slammed it behind him.  
  
"Or you could take personal responsibility! Just a thought, brother!"  
  
Well, that was hypocrisy at it's finest he thinks, slamming through the air and fixing the lamp for the second time. He was seething, he was furious, and now he was fucking thirsty -- excellent. A thumb-jerk at the manilla folder has it catch fire. The sight of the flames and smoke bounces in his eyes, calms the ones in his throat as he watches curling destruction. Swiveling and ripping the phone from his back pocket, he hears half of his name (last name, she must be out, if she's trying to sound impressive) before he asks.

"Where are you?"  
  
"What happened?"  
  
Because of course Daniella could hear it in his voice. That makes his smirk widen; the thought this woman knows him that well.   
  
"Nothing that hasn't happened a hundred fucking times before.Where are you?"  
  
"Where's Tony?" (Because of course Tony would have been involved.)  
  
"Daniella."  
  
"I'll be right there once I'm sure you and your brother aren't in danger of winding up in the Thames."  
  
That only makes him laugh. Honest to god laugh.

"We'd be the ones dumping the body, Dani." The flame glints in Olivier's eye, but he only smirks wider when she responds, "And not in the river, I'm guessing. The authorities would never find the body."  
  
Bodies, yeah he was about to say and then stopped because Daniella had appeared on the balcony. Stilettos first, from Olivier's perspective, and then a little violet cocktail dress, and then black shadowy eyes full of knowledge and concern. Though to be quite honest, Olivier didn't see them, because in a blink his gaze (and the back of his fingers) were passing back and forth on her pulse. She tucked her hand on his wrist, held fast, and asked again.  
  
"Tony?"  
  
"In control of his own life."  
  
"...Ah." Her hand comes up to brush over his lips, and now he sees the concern in her eyes.   
  
(It occurs to him later: it was the fact Dani genuinely did care if Tony was okay that calmed him more than anything).  
  
There was something in Daniella's eyes that made him think she was as sympathetic as him -- but in another moment she's just leaned over to the glass door, asking if he had his knife, and then when he answers affirmative -- she just slides the door shut.  
  



	54. Jacuzzi

Stefanie had heard...well, nearly everything. She wasn't eavesdropping (she swears); Olivier opened the window and she'd been reading a piano score on 'her' room's balcony, making notes to herself to try out on the piano later. When the boys started shouting, she swore a flock of pigeons and sparrows took off in the woods.  
  
Smart birds, Stefanie thinks as she predictably goes the other way.  
  
(It wasn't like she has a choice when Daniella showed up; they might have dropped their voices, but when blood was spilled that free and fully, it was brutally hard to ignore.)  
  
And...yes, it was also because she wanted to see Tony. Stef waits an hour at least-- she knew he needed to calm down, to breathe, to have a moment's peace, as he put it. All the brother's had shouted...  
  
(Stef was glad to have been wrong; Olivier did realize what Tony was putting himself through.)  
  
So after a quick trip to the kitchen, downing a blood bag in three extended sips, and returning the sheet music, Stefanie gets an idea passing the house's middle, looking in through glass. Huh.  
  
(She changes in five seconds.)  
  
And so she's only wearing a towel and bikini when she knocks on Tony's door, hair pulled up in a ponytail as she asked (mild and casual),  
  
"Tony, do you know if the hot tub operates with a spell? Because I can't find the switches."  
  
When he heard the knock, he let the heavy book fall on top of his face, as if he could disappear into the pages. He could muster about three guesses of who it was at the door. Hearing Stefanie's voice, he nodded to himself, expecting it. He rolled over and checked the time on his phone. An hour? Didn't he just get here five minutes ago? Time flies when you angrily brood while rereading the same line because your brain just can't process it.  
  
Stefanie doesn't frankly care to hide her blatant want to know he was all right -- she frankly wants to barrel through and give him a hug, but knew he had to want to open the door on his own. (So yes, she put on a cotton candy coloured bikini.)  
  
"You're welcome to join me in it too, you know." Stef added softly.  
  
Tony knew he could have ignored her or shouted the answer to her or really behave like a child and pretend to be asleep. (He never did that though, why start now?) Instead, he continued to roll out of bed, rubbing the back of his head. He needed a drink. Why didn't he have a liquor stash in his room?  
  
"The on button is on the wall like a light switch," he explained lazily, knowing it was just an excuse to come check on him.  
  
"The dimmer controls how hot," he paused as he opened the door and was met with a sight for sore eyes. Now he understood the 'feeding your pupils' comment Irene had made one day."...It gets." He licked his lips and then looked back up at Stefanie.

"Nice strategy, and very nice bikini."  
  
"Strategy?" Stefanie asks with an innocent head tilt, her hand flat on the frame of the door and ankle kicked behind the other.  
  
"Uh huh." He nodded as she feigned ignorance, though he couldn't deny it was entertaining to watch her play the innocent act, even if it didn't work in the slightest. Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, there was absolutely nothing innocent about Stefanie anymore. Except maybe her belief that Arya and Gendry will be together again, bless her unbeating heart.  
  
 Four seconds. That was how long he pauses between words that required no pause. His eyes seemed to drink, feast, gorge itself on it's trek across her bare skin. That wasn't a record, but Stef was glad he was given a pause to the broken record of guilt, resentment, angry deflection, and hunger.  
  
"Thanks." Her smile perks at the corner of her mouth, and she looks down, as if to check which one she wore. "I was under the impression my best look requires no cloth, but there is something to be said for a little mystery. And modesty." Her finger twirls a gold curl back behind her ear; she gave up on sticking it in the ponytail. "Being the good Catholic girl I am," she teases, "now, are you going to join me or not? I made cocktails at the pool bar. Think you're manly enough for a fruity drink or two?"  
  
"Oh yeah, quite the modest bikini, hmm," he nodded as he looked at it again. Damn, who would have thought bubblegum pink worked? It appealed to both his inner child and his insatiable adult.  
  
"Well, twist my arm," he leaned away from the door with a brief smirk and headed back to the room to change, taking off his shirt and digging through his drawers to find the bathing suit he hadn't used in ages.  
  
"Now why would I do that when my words are just as effective?"  
  
(Because she could? Because she liked it? Never mind that it was just a figure of speech, of course.)  
  
Stefanie quips in a prim little voice to ignore the tiny twinge in her voice as she thinks she has actually twisted his arm. And what an image that was...  
  
In fact! It was her turn for the visual who it seems. (Everything in equality.) Her tongue peeks between pink lips the same shade as her suit as he rips his shirt off. Damn boy.  
  
"Oh fuck it," he closed the drawer and just took off his jeans to leave him in boxers.  
  
"It's not piña coladas is it?" He asked after closing the door behind him. "I hate piña coladas."  
  
"Hm..." Stef half asks, not actually sure he was even speaking when his pants dropped. Head popping back up with a grin of a cat lingering, she shakes it after meeting his eyes.  
  
"Daquiris. Mostly strawberry. Actually it was mostly whatever fruit you had. Which..." Yeah, because damn D'Grey household, "...was sort-of everything."  
  
Daiquiris, he pretended that was the reason why the smirk returned to his face momentarily. Now those definitely were the fruitiest of the fruity drinks. So sweet, his tongue was curling inside his mouth at the thought of it.  
  
Turning to walk with him, she takes the towel off, folds over her arm and then asks, "Race?"  
  
(Tony probably had to blow off steam.)  
  
"Bring it on," he replied immediately, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "But, let's make it interesting." His eyebrows pop and wiggle.  
  
"Interesting?" Stefanie asks as she curls the towel around her shoulders, tying around her wrist. Explaining as she does, "If it billows out, a cape would slow me down," her hand comes up to quote an animated character with graceful enthusiasm. "No cape! Like the Incredibles."  
He laughs at her impression of the unique Edna Mode, nodding his head in agreement. No capes, agreed. It would make it too tempting to grab and pull her backwards if she ended up getting in front of him, which would undoubtedly happen. Like he had noted before, she was superhuman, her normal speed was super fast, she worked to keep it back on human levels. He had to tap into it. Ergo, she was faster.  
  
The impression was more convincing than her innocent act. Why shouldn't a vampire be a superhero? Who had the right to decide abilities define choices, define a person's heart?  
  
Tied off, she places her hand on her hip before asking, "Now how interesting?"  
  
He jumped and then turned 180 degrees mid air, giving the hallway his back.  
  
"Backwards!"  
  
Oops, did this have the potential to wreck a few pieces of furniture? A laugh bubbles from lips still pursed to stave off hunger, abrupt. Oh Antonio, Stefanie thinks, giggling.  
  
"You could be Peter Pan's brother, you know that?" (And how she prays he finds his own Neverland.) Then she spins, hands still poised in a runner's sprint.  
  
He shrugs, contemplating the notion. Hmm, he could see that. Leading a band of lost boys, fighting off Captain Hook, hanging with the mermaids who fawned all over him, having a cute fairy sidekick who got all jealous and protective of him. There was something missing there though.  
  
"Nah, Neverland is too PG for my tastes," he nods, finally deciding, given that the inability to have sex was definitely a deal breaker.  
  
"You would think that," she said tucking her hair back again with a thin-veiled '...men' behind her voice. "His teenage older brother then."  
  
(Except there was a simple way Tony could actually be twenty-four his entire life, so Stefanie skipped on).  
  
That he could more readily accept. Except his sex life as a teenager wasn't exactly stellar. Well, it was for him, it was so easy to please a man after all, but he'd had a lot to learn before he achieved his sex god status.  
  
"And the winner gets...?" She asks, tightening her bikini straps. (Oh, did that perk her chest?)  
  
The winner gets...distracted by the competition's bosom. He looks back up, slipping his tongue back in his mouth.  
  
"If I win, you go topless." Ah, damn, he had been too distracted to think of a different prize, this was unfair.  
  
...Okay, now she has to actually swallow the '...men', when he changes rewards mid-sentence. As if she hadn't used it to her advantage, her sly smile adds. Hey, at least if they broke anything, it would be out of a game this time. Tony has the best smile when it's honest; his face loses half a decade of worry and decades twice actually possible of guilt.  
  
Stef knew what she wants (always wants now). It even was easily equatable. But if she said it now, Tony would stop smiling.  
   
"Hun," she says instead, smile too sweet to be genuine, "if you win I'll go skinny if that means when I win you'll give me a full-body massage in the tub."  
  
See, her eyes seem to say, now you don't know if you'd prefer lose. Look but don't touch, or...  
  
Her condition made him pause and lick his lips. Damn, now he was tempted to purposefully lose. But if he didn't give it his all, he ran the risk of making the wager null and void.  
  
"Deal. On three."  
  
She watched the dilemma just shoot across Tony's face with no attempt to disguise her amusement - or her appreciation for the fact that cheap tricks wouldn't sway him from his goal of winning. If she was interested in him giving a repeat performance of his angry deflection (and honest righteous cause) earlier, she might mention she liked seeing him stand up for himself.  
  
But...she really wants that full-bodied massage. Sue her all right!? Tony's hands were...Italian, and god-like.  
  
"Un, deux, trois! -- " she darts off, trying to swallow her breathy giggle over Tony's Italian in her ear. Moving backwards at vampire speed? -Only- peter pan's brother could have had that idea. After bumping into a table, wall, and shiny golden railing, her bare feet finally find marble floor again. If she fell in the pool and the bikini popped off, that was not allowed to be Tony winning. Stefanie swears by it.  
  
At least he had been expecting the quick countdown, given that he had done the same the first time they raced. At three, in both languages, he sped backwards, trying to use his knowledge of the house to help him with his endeavor but his memory wasn't quick enough to keep up with his speed and several benches, handrails, and paintings paid the price. As well some vases, a lamp (poor things couldn't catch a break), and he was pretty sure they ended up ripping the rug they tripped over.  
  
Bruises spider across her back from the broken table first - then metal rail, healing moments later. She laughs the whole, twisted demented backwards way. Skin thick and flawless, Stefanie thinks briefly, she likes the reminders she could be hurt. It made her feel human. Life imitates art.  
  
Thankfully, he didn't bleed. His skin was determined to be like the hide of a rhinoceros, but he did bruise with every bump, and something akin to rug burn as skin scraped against rough surfaces. Nothing he wasn't used to though, and at the risk of sounding emo, the pain helped.  
  
And she likes Tony's fellow chuckles; especially when they both trip over the same carpet. Forcing herself to grab the rail,  momentum carries her feet backwards, whipping her ponytail though the air as if it's a poniard. For a moment, she becomes Stefanie-the-kite.  
  
Then her feet hit the wet floor, she slip-slides backwards, grabbing Tony's hand (fine, he beat her by a half-second) -- and let the water drop them both into the pool. The chlorine would stifle the fact her back had bled against the wood--give the cut time to heal over.  
  
The wall had four new scratches as he tried to use it to help him round a corner. It didn't work very well, nothing was, but it was really fun.  
  
By the time they had slid in the pool, he was out of breath, and sore and he arose from the water laughing and groaning, but mostly laughing. He passed a hand through his hair to clear the water out and laughed again.  
  
When she comes up for air from habit (and because she still has Tony's wrist), she shakes hair everywhere and declares, prim.  
  
"-I- think we both should win."  
  
"Yeah, sounds like the words of a loser," he splashed water at her and then grinned, wading closer. Stefanie squeaked (as if his objection hadn't been utterly anticipated) and threw her hands up. It was about then she realized the negligibly cold water could do little to dim her sight; she blinks off what he splashes-slash-tsunamis at her, damn their speed, and swirls in the resultant wave.  
  
"But okay, tie! Yay! We're all winners!"  
  
When she made it one-eighty, Tony was closer to her again. His heart was beating mighty and quick, making her pause her breath intentionally - at least until she needed it for her voice.  
  
"Loser?" She scoffs, and leans back in the water, kicking until she's afloat. Untying with one hand, she lets the current of his wave take the pink cotton off. The other she holds over her forehead to smirk at him. When it naturally ebbed away (she won't breathe extra to aid the slow reveal of different shades of rosy-pink beneath it,) she finally spoke again.  
  
"Fine, then look, but you can't touch. Otherwise, we both won."  
  
Was it too late to take it back? He was about to say so; to say never mind, she won, she wins everything, always. His eyes roamed hungrily and his body wanted to combat with the water in response. This is why cold showers never worked with him.  
  
He groaned and then sank into the water, blowing out bubbles before rising again, passing his hand through his hair again. Well if you were going to be young forever, it helped to look as hot as Stefanie did.  
  
"Alright, no touch," he pouted. He'd just have to ravish her body with his eyes instead.  
  
"I have to say," Stefanie chuckles as she stretches herself like a lazy cat, and kisses her fingertips before brushing them back through her hair to fan it behind her as she floats, "I appreciate the fact you won't give up."  
  
That wasn't too shielded (or too transparent either), was it? Tony was glorious in his immaturity and stubbornness at times: at least when he was standing up for himself. (Oh, was that her plan in the first place? As if her strategy only involved pink cotton and fruity drinks. Though judging by his devouring gaze, maybe that was all it took to make him feel better.)  
  
"Just remember how much you like my stubbornness now when it makes you want to kill me," he offered casually with a little grin, knowing very well it was a potentially problematic subject of conversation, which is probably why he moved on from it so quickly.  
  
"I always do." Stefanie replied, now running her hand up the side of her bare, wet neck. Intentionally not looking at him immediately, her words were lazy as her stretching. "Both always reminding myself what it is I like so much about you, and...always want to kill you."  
  
He licked his lips again.  
  
"Drinks, they're necessary."  
  
"Over there." She says casually, hand fluttering after her words to point at the drink. Stefanie waits a moment before calling after him, "Did we make the bet that I'd be skinny?" Like it wasn't her suggestion. "I think we did, didn't we?" As if she'd forgotten. "All right, go ahead, twist my arm."  
  
And she undoes the bottoms too, letting them float away with the top.  
  
He swims over to the edge and lifts himself up the water cascading down his body as he walked, leaving water footprints behind. He picked up the fruity drink as she raised her voice to ask a question she knew the answer too. He swallowed a sip of the fruity daiquiri and turned around to see her take off the bottom part of her bikini.  
  
He took another sip, and licked his lips yet again. Eyebrows raising as he deliberated, he took the drinks with him to accompany his smirk as he moved to the jacuzzi.  
  
"Yep, and you invited me to the hot tub, not the pool." This was a thinly veiled attempt to get her to move out of the pool but you know, he had to do what he could with what he had right?  
  
Like now for instance, she wanted to kill him and reminds herself no-she-doesn't at the same time. He was taking her daiquiri and giving her no choice but to rise (slowly, provocatively and with no shame) from the pool to join him in the hot tub. But this one had bubbles, and the added benefit of hot water warming her skin. (He did say he missed them being warm and well, what were they being now if not cotton candy, fluffy and comforting?) "Don't forget the butterflies..." she hummed under her breath before slipping back under the water.  
  
When she rose, she adds, "And nice strategy, getting me over here."  
  
She holds her hand out expectantly for her glass now, but her smile was keen and small.  
  
"Yeah, yeah." She grins, almost sheepish (almost) before she allows, "that innocent work acts about as well for you as it does for me. Ironic, considering we are good little Catholics and what not."  
  
He gave his best innocent schoolboy smile to accompany her saying they were such good catholic children. Right. Mass murderer as well as a hybrid anomaly ) , and a self-chosen vampire, defying the natural order of life. What a good Catholic pair they made.  
  
Stefanie takes the drink with a nod of appreciation, her hand going to the top of her chest as bubbles were erupting around it. The warmth of the water was making it hard for the pink nipples to stay hard - but she couldn't help but touch one as it fought valiantly to do so watching him, watch her.  
  
"Thanks, though. I didn't really...want to be alone tonight." Again, her eyes seem to say as she taps a nail on the glass.  
  
Not to mention they were both sexually starved demons, he was reminded (as if he could ever forget) as she fingered a nipple. Goddamn, woman.  
  
His gaze flicked up again stubbornly as she spoke, snapping him to reality, his lustful eyes softening at her words. Clearing his throat he admitted.  
  
"I almost left for the night. Until I realized that I made my mind up to stop running away, and I want to stick to it." He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck as took a sip of the daiquiri.  
  
"But I was determined!" He chuckled, "To stay in my room. But I have a hard time denying you anything."  
  
"You, stubbornly contrary? " she turns her lips up with the sly little look (she knew exactly where he'd just been looking, as she'd purposefully drawn his eyes). "Perish the thought."  
  
Actually, she doesn't want him ever to change. (Maybe that's why she understands why he's so angry with the fact that, frankly, she did.)  
  
Yes of course, that was simply who he was. Stubborn, hypocritical, and when he could be both at the same time? Oh, that was like Christmas. Not last Christmas, though the gifts were great, it had been just too close to tragedy for comfort. And he supposed there were a few other problematic Christmases- okay, getting off topic there.  
  
"I thought you might leave."  She sips the whipped cream off the top of the daiquiri first, swiping her tongue across it and sucking as she contemplates. The words were almost shy. "I guess I just wanted to...make it clear I wasn't leaving...you. Not that we'd been together, but we both are in this gargantuan house, so."  
  
"Gargantuan, good word." He looked up and around in this indoor pool area. "It makes me think of the belly of the beast," he chuckled and then exhaled, leaning his head back after another sip.  
  
She points at him with the cherry stem, sinking further into the bubbles (which were pixelating out the areas she knew he wants to look). "But! I caught a glimpse of where you were and -- damn, I'd have been furious to be interrupted in the end of that book too. I hope you don't feel like I made you do something you didn't want to. I mean, if you really don't want to be with me in this hot jacuzzi, with fruity drinks, bubbles, and my bikini somewhere over there -- say the word, no hard feelings, do not pass GO --  " Teasing, Stefanie goes to stand up (still perfectly covered by hair and bubbles), going to get out by him and -- well, failing.  
  
"Whoops," he commented with an impish grin as she fell back down, spilling her drink inside the tub.  
  
He'd read the book a thousand times, so it didn't really matter but doing something he didn't want to do? He smirked, thinking of her first Sunday here and then chuckled again. Ha. Like he said, you need to laugh to keep from frowning. But keep her in this jacuzzi, yes, that he did want. With a mumbled protest, he took her hand as she walked by (somehow covered, how?), and pulled her back down onto him.  
  
"No, stay." He lifted his head as he looked into her eyes and then added, with a light tease. "I mean that of course as a request and not an order."  
  
Stefanie tumbles and splashes with great fuss and care onto his lap, slipping as she lands half on the underwater ledge, half on his boxers. Laughter still bright in her ears, she speaks while elbowing him for the protest, "Cute."  
  
Besides. Getting up, the whole point had been to make him break and let him touch her (simultaneously; it was a dual objective). Straightening herself to keep from swallowing the jacuzzi water, she lays her head back (her chin rests on his shoulder, her hair falls over the side), then she leans forward to steal a sip of his daiquiri, as hers was now floating in the tub.  
  
Brow popped, she decides aloud after a hearty sip, "Of course, naturally, as you snake your arm around my waist."  
  
Spilling alcohol was never an intention of his. Waste a drink like that? Never. But it did have its benefits, like Stefanie's new seat (which she might have been correct in saying he did have some influence in keeping her there), and sharing the drink.  
  
She winks, but being this close to him, it was hard to ignore his neck - his lips - his gorgeous, bright blue eyes filled with such anguish from earlier and timid want behind his hunger. Her hand lifts to ghost across his lips, then fall to his neck, thumb brushing over his pulse as she says deadpan, "I'm here."  
  
And of course, he wasn't the only one incapable of keeping his hands to himself. Her fingers trailed around his lips and neck (above his vein, it always did now), eliciting a small smile from him that grew with her words. He had completely forgotten he was supposed to be angry with her too. At least for right now. He leaned his head down and kissed her forehead.  
  
"I'm glad," he spoke against her skin after a brief sigh.  
  
Stefanie could hear his joy. It struck her nose and ears, dries her throat out for all the water splashing around them (and on to the floor. All right mostly on the floor. At least the maids were never bored?) Heart thrumming in his chest, veins alive, skin hot and smile small--she could hear everything. She caused it. How backwards was that?  
  
Curling closer as his lips grace her forehead, she swims her knees up to settle more in his lap, her arms folding in the tight heat to luxuriate. The feeling -- joy -- it was always followed by guilt now (why did she get to be happy when her brother never could be? when her victim died nameless and alone?) -- and Stefanie strives to stave it off. Tony needs her to succeed. Tony (who watched Marcel die) whose brother was as monstrous as hers -- except, no, he wasn't. Their argument? Olivier had wanted him to be free. Stefanie does too.

(So why did she hold him closer?)  
  
"I'm glad too, suesser."  
  
Tony chuckled at her German pet name, unable to forget his previous reply to the word that sounded close enough to a sneeze. He didn't give the same blessing now, especially after noticing that Stefanie kept referring more and more to her Austrian roots and heritage. He could probably speculate on all the psychological reasons for it, draw parallels between that and people choosing new names in darkness, but he chose to remain happy. Well, as happy as he could get. It wouldn't last long, and once it was gone he wouldn't remember how it felt until he had it again. So best enjoy it while it happened.  
  
The light chuckle in her ear made her roll her eyes up to the ceiling; his native tongue had terms of endearment like cara and dolcezza -- he speaks Italian and her knees go weak. When she recalls her own heritage, he chuckles. She pokes his neck as if to say she heard that, then kisses the spot once in apology an amusement.  
   
"It means 'my treasure', you know." She whispered into his neck, turning as his hand gently flows, running his thumb with the water over her skin. Lifting to her knees to straddle both him and one of the jets (oh, that was fun), her head doesn't move away from him.  
  
"And that's all I am to you?" He teased, licking his lips and then taking another sip. Actually, not bad. He just never thought that something that sounds like a sneeze could mean treasure. He put the drink one of the little cup-holders around the edges of the jacuzzi and then smirked as she straddled him, and the jet spray. Damn, woman.  
  
"Tony," she implores. Pouting a little as she watches the cup disappear -- at least until his hands come back to embrace her under her chest, teasing her, lifting her -- she continues, "I could search through every language on this planet--including Dothraki, elvish, Kling-on and Valyrian -- and I would never."  
  
She presses closer, one hand bracing his neck and the other parting his lips as she steals another kiss, "Never, be able to sum you up."  
  
"But you know?" She looks up at him, taking his breath for herself as she hovers and whispers, "I could be happier."  
  
"Of course you could," he remarked with another chuckle. Anybody that said they couldn't be happier was lying. You could always be happier, it just seldom occurred.  
  
"Bit greedy, isn't it?" He teased as his hand around her waist held her closer, fingers brushing against a hip.  
  
"I am greedy. Goes with the territory of being insatiable." She points out. "Voracious, actually."  
  
As she ever was for him. So why did she feel so stuck between sadness and delight? Goddamn her mind, she thinks, pressing her bare chest into his and kissing him once. Make it shut up. Then she pulls back, until her waist is pushing against his grip, gentle. Eyes on him, she adds, "And if I said tonight was entirely in your control, Tonio?"  
  
Voracious, insatiable, yes, all of that and more. Not to continue to copyright any more material, but to him, Stefanie was essentially -the- woman.  
  
His lips part open as she leans in, chest brushing against each other, to kiss her back.  
  
"Then I would say," he began murmuring, kissing her briefly once more, because he couldn't help himself, "how'd you like that massage after all?"  
  
Settling on his lap again as she enjoyed the vibrations of the jet and moving unconsciously against his leg, Stefanie relaxed. He steals kisses, thumb in the crease of her chest, the other already massaging her lower back. It figured. Why wait for an answer?  
  
"Your will, my command."She gives one anyways, to the surprise of no-one, because she was a hypocrite when she called him stubborn.  
  
"Or to be more accurate, for tonight anyway," Stefanie muses as she let's him gently move her, "your command."  



	55. Photograph.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (It's not your most flattering look, love...)

Detective Alys Dale was dressed to embody confidence as portrayed by sharp and snappy: 'I am Woman Hear Me Roar'. Oh, he heard the roar, from her strapped toe boots to the buttons that tie her blazer under a bosom that Ansel can't help but picture free of constraint. Was there another reason women dressed tight-laced beyond harboring a desperate want to be free? He licks his lips as her heels strike marble towards him, but from the inside of his mouth. Open objectification - even if it was taming the wolf inside him -  well, that would just be rude.   
  
"Monsieur Dorat?" She asks, extending a hand to shake with him as he stands. The firm grip tests him, he realizes with a grin on his lips. Alys was the kind to judge a man by their handshake, and eye contact. Ordering his gaze to stay on hers, he says first, "Enchante." There was some flicker in her expression that makes his jade eyes recognize hers, and she tugs her hand free as if to protect herself.  
  
"Pleasure." She responds, also in crisp French. "I apologize for the wait--as you can see--"  
  
"--The department is busy, I see and approve." Ansel concludes for her, even recognizing in her paused breath and twitch in her smile she didn't like being interrupted. He could understand that. Being talked over ones' entire life was exhausting as much as aggravating. He would know.   
  
"Approve?" Her one word, defensive off-the-cuff response lifts his eyebrow. Touchy, he thinks, as well as astute. It hadn't been so veiled a criticism of the department that had stood by a century as the D'Grey cartel was born. Ansel nods. As she tucks hair away and looks to the choking atmosphere of busywork, he thinks she agrees with his assessment. Ah, wonderful, he had come to the right detective then.  
  
"Well, then I shan't apologize." Alys compromises. Her eyes meet his instinctively. "I understand you have information for a case of mine...?"  
  
Ansel's smirk can't help but dance across the stage of his lips, like an unwanted encore he quickly shoos off to avoid risking the audience's offense.    
  
"Oui," he says, and wastes no time, "a week and a half ago, you found two bodies in the alley on the rue St. Denis, behind the Hideout, the one near les Halles? Monsieurs' Bruce Mancion and Alain Roussel."  
  
Alys doesn't blink, doesn't move, doesn't do anything despite the perfectly accurate information, which was irritating her (he could see). And it would irritate him as well, he thinks, despite the fact he was engaged in building credibility. How often did she find herself approached by men and women who believe they know more about your city and job than you do? How much more aggravating was it when they were right? This was why you don't cater to the cartel, he thinks, the status quo. Still, in the interest of not insulting her, he continues reporting fact, "They were found ripped apart as if by an animal, oui? Matched only by teeth records?"   
  
"And one fingerprint," Alys says, and not inconsequentially, Ansel thinks. Yes, the woman was protecting her reputation. She also had just pointed out that the municipal police descended on the scene before Olivier had the opportunity to clean up his brother's mess - and clearly Antonio had never learned it on his own.   
  
He nods, then pulls the envelope free from his breast. "It's not all I have," Ansel continues as he undoes his own seal, one that would have burned any but he to touch, "but it is I figure...as they say, a good start."  
  
Alys doesn't look at it until he has the manilla fold open; the digitally enhanced photograph resting inside it atop a small stack of records glaring at her. After flicking her gaze to the time stamp (good girl, Ansel thinks approvingly, and yes it is in your frame of time of death), she seems to bite her tongue and relax at the same time. Her nod is slight.   
  
"What you have," she returned to her crisp voice despite already turning to let him walk with her, "is five minutes."   
  
That makes him smile. He recognized, see, the immediate attempt to assert one's dominance in a situation you have only bare authority on. The fact the bodies had been ripped apart was what did it; he saw it in her eyes. That detail hadn't been released to the public. As Ansel had it, she had to take him seriously, photograph aside.  
  
"I wouldn't dream, cheri, of taking up any more of your busy time."   
  
"Let me guess," Alys smirks in a way he appreciates (there were nothing like Parisian women), side-long in her glance at him before concluding aloud. "You'll dream about more enjoyable things?"   
  
Oh, he already was.   
  
"Oh, pardone, give me a bit more credit than that. If I wanted to flirt with you?" Ansel begins as he enters her little interrogation area.They really were overworked, weren't they? He sees only one coffee cup, clearly marked with the mauve lipstick the woman pretends not to be wearing. Nose shrinking on his face, he undoes the top button of his own blazer, loosens his shirt, and turns mid-toss of his file onto her desk. "I wouldn't have started this conversation showing you a photo of a murder."    
  
It narrowly avoids the coffee.   
  
Alys pauses as their eyes met and then she nods, closing the door behind her and moving to draw the blinds. The turn from him gives it away as easily as if she'd just looked at him. If Alys hadn't smiled at his remark, she'd have had no trouble looking him in the eye. Not for a woman as sharp as she.   
  
"Is that what the photo shows?" Her question was redundant, but he understands and sits anyway. In it, the murderer's mouth was attached to the neck of a very-much still alive Alain. It wasn't definitive, however much it was damning. The legal team they'd be up against (not that she knew that yet) would find every inch of reasonable doubt -- and more than that. He drums his thumb on the edge of his thigh and leans back.   
  
"Let me ask a different question first." Ansel says, eyes on the clock stuffed in the corner of her dim-lit desk. "Messrs.' Mancion and Roussel? There's a reason you have the fingerprint on file."  
  
Alys' smile immediately tightens, and again he thinks mildly: touchy, touchy, touchy.   
  
"Mademoiselle?" Nothing but her eyes tighten, and Ansel knows he's right (but then, he knew that before he walked in the door). "They were both in the system already."   
  
"Oui," she answers, chin perking in the air.   
  
"I'm guessing on suspicion of murder, convictions at best of armed larceny and assault."   
  
"You're very astute."   
  
""I've been told, though in this case I have the benefit of foreknowledge. I merely want to state that it would be understandable why in the wake of Notre Dame the municipal department was not doing more than passing glance at the murder of two criminals."   
  
Alys' eyes flashed despite the lack of judgment in his eyes. It's what she says next that lets him know he's home already. (Of course he was. Paris was his city.)   
  
"Murder is murder, Monsieur Dorat."   
  
Clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth in agreement, Ansel sits up straighter and lifts his hand in the air to gesture an air of causality.   
  
"I was hoping we'd be of the same mind on this matter."   
  
Her gaze follows his hand, but only for a moment, as if to take a beat for herself before saying 'yeah- okay, back to business.' At least he gave the detective her moment of zen appreciation. It was likely she didn't get that often.   
  
"This photo - "  
  
But Ansel wasn't fond of being talked over any longer.   
  
"Miss Dale, please." His hand goes up. "I can guess what it is you're about to say. The photo shows definitively only a man getting kinky with his boyfriend, not getting murdered."   
  
Her laughter jumps from her lips in such heat and flash, even Alys seems surprised. It didn't surprise him: Ansel was used to being laughed at, though that did nothing to devalue the swell of warmth in his gut over the fact. Impressive, he wants to drawl, for she recovers quickly.   
  
"Crude, but yes."   
  
His hand comes back down, tips folding to meet the other, bridging across his knee. That coffee was taunting him, he thinks, throat dry and wanting. That was a familiar lot in his life too. Sometimes Ansel thinks all he ever does is want, want, want -- take, take, take -- and yet even now, even successfully alpha, he can't help but feel a semblance of regret for what was.   
  
"Miss Dale," he repeats her name with a slow nod, serious. "I came to you because my sources tell me you already in the...know."   
  
Nothing flickers through her gaze this time. It relieves him: he was right again. She knew about magic, she knew about the things that went bump in the night. What was more, Ansel was already certain he had a sense of why she did.  
  
"Oui," her words were firm, hand curling around her own coffee cup as if en garde for it. "I thought you might've. But unless you intend for me to walk into court and tell the judge that vampires are real and my two victims killed by one - "  
  
"That would be unwise." Ansel interjects at once as she pauses. This time she seems relieved by it and he realizes with some amusement it was the nature of her own remark. When one begins with 'unless you intend for me to--' it was a good idea to have a dramatic part two. The hands of the law were tied in that regard. Unless you do this I...will continue to prosecute to the fullest extent of my ability? They would get further threatening. In this case, it seemed they had him for that.   
  
"Unwise," Alys laughs with nothing but incredulity.   
  
"And a tad bit inaccurate," Ansel continues, "as the man in question is neither human nor vampire."  
  
"Pardon?"   
  
"He's both."   
  
"Both." Alys swallows tight. Ansel's hands up fold, one slipping into his pocket to wrap around his wallet. Yes, his gaze says for him, both, and oh yes, you're right to be afraid accordingly.   
  
Alys drops her gaze back to the photo, her hand brushing over the garish yellow timestamp first, and then the eyes. A shiver takes her spine; Ansel listens to the little clinks of her spine snapping in place one-by-one, up they go, until she's gained two inches in the seat and ten new wrinkles to worry about in her fifties.   
  
"We have an arrangement, for these cases. So, I thank you for confirming my suspicion," her voice was all business, "and I will be sure to send the image to one trained to..handle, such a creature."   
  
Oh, cheri. A pout tugs on his lips. The first thing she said the entire time that had disappointed him.   
  
"Merci, dah-ling...although I feel compelled to warn you such might be counterproductive."   
  
"Excuse me?" The retort whips in the air and Ansel returns immediately, "I assume you are referring to hunters of the supernatural entities first?"   
  
"Foremost." She bites down on her lip.   
  
"That would be sufficient," he throws her a bone, "were it not for the fact your murderer was mentored by them a half decade ago."   
  
If he thought that was going to frighten her, Ansel was sorely wrong, but his smirk only widens as she seeks her immediate second resort. He interrupts before she speaks this time to save herself the obvious embarrassment.   
  
"Then there's the matter that the arrangement was made with D'Grey."   
  
One blink-long Ansel thinks he might be about to have his wish of being united with the coffee mug after all. Her poise is too ingrained to chuck, it seemed, almost sad. Maybe she had been a ballerina? Ah, there was an image. "Are you accusing me of something?" Alys' voice might break nails. Definitely sad this time, was that she did not seem as amused as him. Despite grey eyes appearing that she'd blame on dim light, Ansel responds cordially.   
  
"You?" No. The department on the other hand -- "  
  
"Does things by the book, Monsieur Dorat." Her finger suddenly bounces in the air and unpleasantly, it was over his name. Ah, yes, well. This wasn't the first time she'd met him; only the first time in a half decade and the first time she had a chance of remembering. His father was good for something, and after all, he hardly resembles the young boy he'd been? Either version: the puffed-up prick desperate for Daddy or the one that pretended that was still him and hid his track marks under Armani. There was no semblance of either. The former had been a waste and the latter had been...well. Happy. To an extent. The smirk on his face now is anything but that.   
  
"Dorat. Related to -- "    
  
"Gabriel Dorat is my older brother, oui." Ansel waves this off, preferring that than hearing his father's name. An eyebrow remains arched as he twitters, tiredly, "And I am happy to hear the Surete are doing things by the book."  
  
"Unlike - "  
  
"Moi?" His hand goes to his chest, eyes suddenly green again in fake amusement.   
  
The smile is repeated on his own face in an instant as she returns, "What you have here was obtained without a warrant."   
  
Ansel kicks his ankle around the edge of his chair, itching in the position of rest. Even his brother's name wasn't one he was fond of speaking. It was, however, going to come with the fact that his father's attempt not withstanding to erase him from Paris' history was clearly going to fail. Thanks to him.   
  
"I suppose it's lucky for you then," he says as he toys with the wallet in his pocket still, "that you did not obtain it from my home but from my open palm."   
  
Still business, and apparently no longer amused (ah, it had been five minutes, he could see), Alys' questions become reportorial.   
  
"And how did you come by that photo?"   
  
"From a camera given to me by a busybody waitress with a not-so-healthy-maybe fetish for Cullen. The rest of the roll is well worth a look through too, I assure you -- but sadly, irrelevant to this case."   
  
"This woman is -- "   
  
"Anonymous," Ansel nods at the file, "but the information is in there should it become necessary, as is the location of the Kinkos she developed the film at. If you go there, you'll notice the scanner has been tampered with two days after this roll was developed -- curiously, along with every other photo distributor within three blocks of the crime scene."   
  
D'Grey is thorough, it could not be clearer he was saying that. Alys got that though, which pleased Ansel. He gestures once more at the file.   
  
"Go ahead, it's all there in black, white, and red."  
  
"Red?"  
  
"What can I say? I fixed a typo in a red pen." Ansel leans back and shrugs; his fingerprints were nowhere on the file any longer and even if they had been, he knows his own record was expunged from even memories, as evidenced by Alys' lack of remembrance. The corner of his lips curl up. "I'm a perfectionist."   
  
She pauses again as she looks over the photograph,  as if searching for something else, something that will either give her the conviction or the authority to call him a fool. Ansel waits patiently (well, his eyes flicker to the mug a few times), confident in the fact that she'd find neither. Tracking her gaze across the image, she starts lifting it to see the print out from the Kinkos' scanner, the receipt, the photo Allison had taken of the tampered hard drive, the technical readout of the missing data he'd printed himself -- too bad, Olivier, he almost crows. Too bad his friend was so quick in developing her photos.   
  
"And this?" She pauses over another list.   
  
"Credit card number," he says idly, moving to re-button the top of his blazer. "Run it. You'll find it was used fifteen minutes before that photo at a corner store ten feet from the Hide-out, twenty-two minutes before buying a drink of two-hundred dollar a bottle bourbon inside the club in question. And that," he leans over the desk,  "that is the number of the girl I already mentioned."   
  
"And what was she -- "   
  
"She works daylight hours at one of the pizzeria a few blocks from there. Lucky for us, Miss Dale, she was out of cigarettes and only had interest in the ones from the vendor on this corner of la rue St. Denis. Sweet girl. You'd have to put her in witness protection, of course." That word seems to get Alys' immediate attention to Ansel's amusement. Was it such a novel idea witnesses be protected? Ah, perhaps he shouldn't ask that question in D'Grey's city.   
  
"If so inclined, you'll discover she'll testify to seeing the man in question arguing with your victims. The latter were drunken, surely violently so, but well -- the man retorted they should beware his own temper."   
  
"Witness protection?" Nice to see Alys still did not let herself get off track. Running his hand down the back of his neck, his grin turned idle and genuine, if still dark. This office was too dim lit. On the other hand, still leaning close and deeply inhaling from habit, the sweet perfume of her own dark intent is one he relishes.   
  
"When you run the credit card number?" Oh and hadn't that been a bitch to get the Hideout to give up -- the man probably still had the teethmarks from he and Allison imbedded in his skin. So it wasn't surprising the police wouldn't have succeeded; what bartender wants to be blacklisted by Olivier?   
  
"You'll discover that though it routes through a few banks, there's no doubt it belongs to one Antonio Laurent D'Grey."   
  
That makes Alys gaze shoot up - and she has to shoot up twice, for Ansel's moved to stand. Her chin lifts further even as yet she seems taut in her refusal to give up; each fact that should be terrifying her making her only more resolute. There's an unsure quality to her gaze, but Ansel knows it. Should she be more frightened or more vindicated by the truth in his own?   
  
"D'Grey." She repeats for him. It's clear she heard. It just has to be stated for the record.   
  
"I see you know the name." Ansel says, fixing his cuff-link again, apparently bored. Alys doesn't flinch, merely repeats, "Antonio Laurent D'Grey."   
  
Ah, of course.   
  
"Before you go assuming," he lets his arm flutter back to his side as frankly, fuck it, "that you've caught the notorious crime boss, of course blood-sucking murderer slash host of the annually most successful charity for the municipal and national branches of police, as well as several other similar charities --  on camera committing murder? You haven't. Antonio is his little brother. He goes by Tony. And there's a reason you can track that card."   
  
He speaks now with a shrug that Alys apparently doesn't share. Good, he thinks again.  
  
"It's a shame, see. A tragic kind of story. For a while there Antonio was quite the little rebel against their Daddy. It looked like he wouldn't follow in his big brother's footsteps, but..." he sighs, almost convincingly (almost having to lie to be convincing in the slightest), "as you can see Miss Dale..."   
  
He gestures over the photograph open. She still hasn't stood up. Her eyes were stuck on Tony's blue eyes, and Ansel knows what she's seeing there. It irritates him. There was nothing in the photo but the act of murder; it read in every inch of Tony's taut frame and gluttony. If there was tragedy in the act now, it was because of Ansel's words. Why hadn't he just shut up?   
  
"His brother..." Alys mutters under her breath, apparently unaware she spoke for she continues, "...he's friends with the mayor."  
  
"I'm sure he's friends with more than half of the force, Miss Dale." Ansel says courteously as his hand fell back down to his hip. The quick glance to the clock told him he'd vastly outstayed his welcome anyway, so he wasn't bothered by the idea of irritating her further. Was it overprotective still, to warn her about what she was getting in to? Could it be overprotective when she doesn't remember that they knew each other once, doesn't remember him a decade back with Colette - though Alys was sure to know Colette's name, still yet. Ansel might have told her (he wants to tell her), but Alys had always been straight and narrow. If she knew she was speaking cordially now with the man who'd killed her -- and in a fashion very similar, ironically enough, to the murder they discuss now -- he'd be so lucky to be 'prosecuted to the fullest extent of by-the-book law.'   
  
He smiles at her.  
  
"It's why I have multiple copies of this file, and ask only that you presently keep your source - both the girl, and myself - anonymous. At least for now. I'd also urge you to keep yourself as involved as thinly as possible, but..." Ansel shrugs, smirk shrinking, "I'm not so presumptuous." Not with an amnesiac who doesn't know she is. Thanks, Gabe. He'd almost prefer her hate to this. But then, this had always been a risk in coming back to Paris -- and he'd missed his home too much to keep away another day.   
  
(It's why he did not ban, officially, Rachelle from returning -- it was her home once too.)   
  
"Thank you, Mr. Dorat. This ..."   
  
"Call me Ansel, please."   
  
Extending his hand to hers, he shakes firmly again, and then naturally, kisses the top of her palm without shame. The uptick in her heartbeat, a flush of recognition of intimacy between them -- this was music sweeter than almost all to his ears. It's beaten only by one particular Mozart concerto, and that only if played in Salzburg on the festival's final night.   
  
"I wouldn't walk in to the room and declare him a vampire, Alys." He says cordially, near the door as she watches him go. The moment her proper name leaves his lips -- he'd wanted to say it, if just once -- she straightened, as if struck by deja vou. "But are you telling me someone as good as you couldn't make this case when that file gives you a declaration of motive, opportunity, and images of the act?"   
  
"Ansel." She interjects, but when he remains silent, he realizes she was just trying his name out too, as if trying to recall if she'd heard it before. That makes him chuckle. Hans, he's beginning to think; memory work that thorough? He'd almost suspect Hans borrowed it from Angel...or ah -- Harper, as he was now.   
  
"Oh I know." He covers her awkward silence for her with a wave of his hand, the garnet glinting in the dim light. "Understand, Alys." Fine, he'd have to say it twice.    
  
After flicking his gaze to the coffee mug, he meets her gaze to finish sweetly aloud.   
  
"I don't expect that file to lock Antonio up. Not," he holds his hand up to forestall her bristling, expecting it, "because I doubt your capability -- merely the reach of the Surete to do frankly, anything, to stop D'Grey from doing whatever he wants. But if your goal is - and I have a hunch it is, " - a hunch, yeah sure, right, " - to bring down their cartel, dissolve their influence? Then the man in that photograph is likely your best route to success. Ah -- ignore the quick remarks he's sure to make. If possible, I know they are exceptionally irritating - he goads intentionally."  
  
"He's not alone in that," Alys quips with a mischievous glint. Well! Rude. And uncalled for, if Ansel did say so his self.   
  
"But if he's locked away, even house arrest -- " Ansel shrugs, knowing it wasn't likely going to be hard to light the tinder keg, " -- if his brother has to step in at any point, which, that file means he will?" Ansel's smile is honest this time.   
  
"You'll be halfway there." You'll, Ansel thinks as he nods a bow of his head to dismiss himself, knowing she knew he meant 'I'll'. Why shouldn't he? This was his idea, and his gathered evidence -- with some assistance from Allison and a few underground friends.  
  
Besides her smile, the last thing he sees is her looking at her mug in wonder. He's glad she didn't throw it, though he clearly imagines another in a bright, sharp and clever little voice who would have thrown her 'mug at his mug.' He chuckles under his breath, muttering, "Oh, Irene, dah-ling, I miss you too."   
  
Vindicated, Ansel goes to get coffee.


	56. Warrant.

"--yes, to take off in half an hour. No, half. An hour is unacceptable. Do I need to remind you of-" The rapid, stern words were cut off as thankfully, D'Grey doesn't have to remind him. He's walking brisk, down the main flight of stairs, knowing exactly where he was going. (They'd made enough noise getting there). Daniella is following, tying the amethyst dressing robe tight - and slips, making D'Grey turn around, exasperated. It stands to reason she'd be shaky; they--well, he, had been...rough. Jerking his hand up to tell her to go back upstairs, she offers an obscene gesture in return.   
  
"Si, Padre." D'Grey cuts back to the phone call, pressing it hard into his ear and already imagining the jokes (and judgement for involving him) he'd get from Tonio when he found out a priest was escorting him - or rather, officially, Tony was escorting their father. Prying into Vatican business was especially difficult, see.   
  
"Grazie." D'grey shuts the phone on the bottom step, when a door bell echoes from the foyer. Huffing, he spins, fear suddenly in his throat drowning out the obscenity.  
  
Daniella looks back at him and starts gesturing, "Go, you get him out--" but D'Grey shakes his head hearing the repeated slam following the bell. They'd come en masse, naturally, which meant they were surrounding and watching the house: any hubub inside it would only insinuate guilt.  
  
Steadying himself in the parlour, Daniella's already at the door.  
  
"Do you have any idea what time it is--" She starts in French, fluffing her dark tangled hair out with a sleepy drowse.  
  
"We're sorry to disturb you, ma'am," The female detective at the front of a few others starts. Ah, D'Grey thinks. Dale, he thinks her name is. But far from irritated, he's glad suddenly for his girlfriend's stubbornness. Her being there would soften the image.  
  
Olivier follows, taking Daniella's arm as he approaches the door, the picture of calm confusion.   
  
"-Cheri, go back to sleep--" He offers squeezing her arm gently, never once breaking eye contact with the detective.  
  
"Monsieur D'Grey?" She even manages to make it sound like a question as she signals the cops around her to start into their foyer.  
  
 "Si, that's me." He allows the ascent with irritation, but won't show that as they have to appear they're cooperating. "Mi dispacie, Detective, you woke us. How may I help you?"  
  
"This is an arrest warrant for your brother, Antonio D'Grey," the woman hands it to him. She hasn't blinked. Olivier was mildly impressed, all things considered.   
  
"Is he at home?"  
  
Unfortunately, D'Grey thinks. His only consolation was the man who called to warn him was going to have the worse day.  
  
"What's he done?" Daniella asks in a huff as she takes the warrant. Good girl, Olivier thinks, proud: she sounds shocked to see the words 'double homicide' on the piece of paper, as if she wasn't aware.

  
"Monsieur D'Grey." The detective calls him back, as if men weren't already swarming, searching.   
  
"Yes," Olivier says, simply, rubbing down his eyebrows. "I believe he was -- going for a late night swim with his girlfriend."  
  
Daniella mutters, the picture of gossipping domesticity as she yawns, "Not that they call each other that."   
  
"The pool," the detective nods to her team. Six men, Olivier notes sizing them up as he follows, and more outside. Thank heavens it was this early in the morning: the press wouldn't have it for hours, and there wouldn't be pictures of his brother in handcuffs.   
  
" _Cazzo_ ," he mutters under his breath as two of the men stop him. Daniella glared at them for him.  
  
The pool, he said. Which is how Alys found herself standing on a waterlogged deck in front of two people plainly curled up in each other asleep with only a towel as a blanket.   
  
"Shouldn't we let him get dress--"   
  
Alys shuts him up with a look.  
  
"Antonio D'Grey?" Her voice was all business as she calls it.  
  
Talk about a rude wake up call. His eyes opened as the door slammed open and heavy boots made splashes in the puddles of water on the deck. He was up in second, thankfully at human speed being so groggy. Realizing another second later all the guns pointed at him, his first instinct was to reach out for Stefanie as she rose too, trying to stop her from vamping out. Funny, the last time he had held her back, it was to protect her, now he was protecting the people- cops, he realized by the attire. Muggle cops, otherwise they'd have wands pointed.  
  
He secured the towel around Stefanie first, and after a heated look that could have easily read 'don't eat the nice people', he let her wrist go and then turned back to the woman who had addressed him. With no amount of abash, though a certain amount of wariness as he took in all the guns again, he answered.  
  
"That's what they don't call me." Really, who else called him Antonio except people who were either reprimanding him or mocking him? And who else called him D'Grey except people who mistook him for his brother? He didn't understand why, he was clearly better looking.  
  
"What can I do for you today, officers?"


End file.
